Alice Catherine Evans

Alice Catherine Evans (January 29, 1881 – September 5, 1975) was an American microbiologist. She became a researcher at the U.S. Department of Agriculture where she investigated bacteriology in milk and cheese. She proved that Bacillus abortus (now called Brucella abortus) caused the disease brucellosis (undulant fever or Malta fever) in both cattle and humans which led to the pasteurization of milk in US in 1930. Evans was the first woman president elected by the Society of American Bacteriologists. Early life and education Evans was born the younger of two children on a farm in Neath, Bradford County, Pennsylvania, to William Howell, a farmer, and surveyor, and Anne B. Evans, a teacher. Neath was named after Neath, Wales, where Evans's paternal grandparents had emigrated from in 1831. Between the ages of five and six, Evans was taught at home by her parents and then attended a one-room school house in Neath where she earned outstanding grades. In 1886, Evans survived scarlet fever, as did her brother Morgan. She attended the Susquehanna Collegiate Institute in Towanda, where she played on a women's basketball team. Basketball was a new sport to women, and viewers were shocked by the unladylike sport. At one game, a doctor refused to treat Evans' dislocated finger.