Dr Evans is the first Irish university scholar to receive the honour, recognising exceptional early-career achievement by a researcher working in any area of molecular programming, such as theory, experiment, computation or a combination of these areas.
The annual Prize, awarded by the International Society for Nanoscale Science, Computation and Engineering and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), celebrates the achievement and promise of an inspiring member of the next generation of researchers.
It was established in honour of Caltech graduate Robert Dirks, who died tragically in the New York Metro-North train crash in 2015.
Prof Rachel Msetfi, MU's Vice President for Research and Innovation, welcomed the award: "I would like to extend my congratulations to Dr Constantine Evans on receiving the 2025 Robert Dirks Molecular Programming Prize. This significant recognition highlights Dr Evans' contributions to the field of molecular programming.
"As the first Irish university scholar to receive this award, Dr Evans' achievement is a reflection of both his hard work and the ongoing research excellence at Maynooth University’s Hamilton Institute. His research into molecular self-assembly and its applications in biological systems continues to make important strides in the scientific community."
Dr Evans presented a Prize Lecture at the Annual Foundations of Nanoscience Conference hosted in Snowbird, Utah in the US, on Wednesday 30 April, and also received a cash prize.
Welcoming the award, Dr Evans said: “I am honoured to be part of remembering Robert Dirks’ life and work as a brilliant scholar, and hope that my continued research will be a credit to his memory.”
On his field of research, he explained: “I’m interested in the complexity of molecular self-assembly, the process of molecules organising themselves into structures through simple interactions with each other that is behind processes as diverse as the freezing of water into ice or snowflakes and the construction of complex, functional structures in biology, like the viruses that attack our cells and the microtubules that give our cells their shape.
“I look at the way these processes can be viewed as a form of computation, making decisions based on their environment about what to grow, and how we can use self-assembly to design precise, programmable structures at a molecular scale that build themselves.”
Dr Evans, who is a member of a research team led by Professor Damien Woods at MU’s Hamilton Institute, was a lead researcher on a study published in Nature last year, in collaboration with scientists at the University of Chicago and Caltech.
Maynooth University’s Hamilton Institute is dedicated to providing a bridge between mathematics and its applications in ICT, biology and other disciplines.
See the full list of award winners.