Alexander, Hattie Elizabeth (1901–1968)

US paediatrician and microbiologist. Her studies on influenzal meningitis resulted in a successful treatment for this previously fatal disease in 1939. Her research into DNA in the 1940s made her one of the first geneticists. Alexander was a research and teaching staff member of New York's Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center for 37 years.

Alexander was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and educated at Baltimore's Goucher College before going to work as a bacteriologist for state and federal Public Health Services. She went on to receive her MD from Johns Hopkins University in 1930, later specializing in paediatrics at the Harriet Lane Home in Baltimore.