Evans, Alice Catherine (1881–1975)

US microbiologist whose research into the bacterial contamination of milk led to the recognition of the danger of unpasteurized milk. As a result of her research the incidence of brucellosis was greatly reduced when the dairy industry accepted that all milk should be pasteurized.

Evans was born in Neath, Pennsylvania, and studied at Cornell University and the University of Wisconsin, after which she took a research post at the US Department of Agriculture studying the bacteriology of milk and cheese. In 1918 she moved to the Hygienic Laboratories of the United States Public Health Service to research into epidemic meningitis and influenza as well as milk flora.

Brucellosis in humans and cattle had been thought to be two separate diseases until Evans published her findings in 1918. Her results were later confirmed by other scientists, though it was not until the 1930s that the dairy industry accepted that all milk should be pasteurized.