Alice Catherine Evans

Alice Catherine Evans (January 29, 1881–September 5, 1975) was an American microbiologist.

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She was born in a farm in Neath, Pennsylvania. In 1886 she survived Scarlet Fever, as did her brother Morgan. She attended the Susquehanna Collegiate Institute for a year, then became a teacher. After earning a B.S. in bacteriology from the Cornell University in 1909 and an M.S. University of Wisconsin-Madison the following year, she became a researcher at the US Department of Agriculture. There she investigated bacteriology in milk and cheese.

She joined the United States Public Health Service in 1918, researching epidemic meningitis and influenza at the department's Hygienic Laboratories. That same year she demonstrated that bacillus abortus caused the disease Brucellosis (undulant fever or Malta fever) in both cattle and humans. (In 1925 she also contracted this disease and suffered from the symptoms for seven years.) Initially her results were not taken seriously (due to her gender and lack of a Ph.D.), but they were later confirmed by other scientists. This led to the pasteurization of milk in 1930, a process she had championed. As a result, the national incidence of Brucellosis was significantly reduced.

Awards and honors

• First female president of the Society of American Bacteriologists
• Awarded honorary degree in medicine from Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, 1934.
• Awarded honorary doctorates of science from University of Wisconsin-Madison and Wilson College, 1936
• Honorary president, Inter-American Committee on Brucellosis, 1945-57.
• Honorary member, American Society for Microbiology, 1975.
• Inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame, 1993.