Evan J. Chyun ’04

Evan died May 29, 2022, four days short of his 40th birthday, in an automobile accident. 

Evan was raised in Bristol, Conn., and attended Bristol Eastern High School. At Princeton, he was in Wilson College and a member of Charter Club. He earned a bachelor’s degree from the Department of Geosciences. Evan was an Outdoor Action leader, officer of the Taekwondo Club, and committed member of the DCIK intramural kickball team.

After Princeton, he attended the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he served on the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. Evan worked as a public defender, first at the Public Defender Association of Pennsylvania and then at the Office of Public Advocacy in Anchorage, Alaska, before his most recent position at the Alaska attorney general’s office. 

He was brilliant, funny, and witty, a fabulous cook and an accomplished musician. He loved the outdoors and climbing. He explored the wilderness of Alaska from Kenai to Denali, and up to Fairbanks. 

Evan cared deeply about social justice. He was principled and righteous, passionate about racial and gender equality, and spent his career supporting people ignored and mistreated by our system. Evan strove to make the world a better place. 

His friends — including numerous Princeton friends who looked forward to his presence at bachelor parties, weddings, and annual man-cations — will remember his loyalty, contagious cackle, questionable video game skills, encyclopedic knowledge of everything, and enduring love for Mandy Moore and Taylor Swift, Friedrich Nietzsche and Albert Camus. He was unmatched as a travel partner and in his enthusiasm for Natural Ice beer.

Evan is survived by parents Deborah and Yong Sung Chyun, sister Elle, brother-in-law Michael Gillman, two nieces, his feline companion OJ, aunts, uncles, and cousins, as well as his many devoted friends.