In 1918, Alice C. Evans described the organism that caused undulant fever. Despite severe and persistent criticism of her research, she hastened the pasteurization of milk in the United States. Evans also initiated the collection and study of streptococci and their bacteriophages.

The opprobrium that Alice Evans endured was unrelenting, even after her election as the first President of the Society of American Bacteriologists, (now the American Society for Microbiology), but she remained undeterred, a true heroine of American microbiology and a magnificent public health worker.