Singapore: Dr David Evans AM was named a Member in the General Division of the Order of Australia on this year's Australia Day Honours list.

Dr Evans received the award "for significant service to science and innovation through commercialising and developing new technologies", many of which originated from University of Queensland (UQ) research.

"We are delighted to see David receive this honour," said the current UniQuest managing director, Mr David Henderson.

"As well as establishing a firm foundation upon which UniQuest has been able to grow into one of Australia's largest and most successful university research commercialisation companies, David helped to launch many other innovations throughout his career, including the technology based on UQ research which can be found in two-thirds of the world's MRI machines.

"David mentored many of the commercialisation professionals now leading Australia's efforts to promote our innovation resources globally, including tech transfer specialists, venture capitalists, intellectual property advisors and researchers.

"It's an appropriate and well-deserved acknowledgement for someone who has contributed so much in such diverse ways to our industry sector," Mr Henderson said.

Dr Evans co-founded Uniseed, Australia's first university-based venture capital fund jointly founded by UQ and the University of Melbourne (with an initial market capitalisation of $20 million), and was its Chief Executive Officer from 2000-2003 after leaving UniQuest. Uniseed continues to support various UniQuest start-ups, including QRxPharma (now listed on the ASX); Spinifex Pharmaceuticals; TenasiTech; Q-Sera; Hydrexia; ProGel; and Pepfactants.

Dr Evans was also a founding director of IMBcom, established to commercialise discoveries from UQ's Institute for Molecular Bioscience (now under the UniQuest umbrella).

From 2004-2009, Dr Evans was Managing Director and then Executive Chairman of another UniQuest start-up, Magnetica, which is commercialising high-field magnetic resonance technology from UQ's Centre for Magnetic Resonance.

Prior to Dr Evans's involvement with research commercialisation at UQ, he was involved with technology and knowledge transfer at the University of New England. He was also known for participating in and contributing to "the mother of all demonstrations" when Doug Engelbart showcased the computer mouse and the "dawn of interactive computing" in 1968.