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Staphylococcus aureus is a pathogen of concern in milk and milk products. Pulsed UV-light is a novel technology that can be used to inactivate this pathogen in a very short time. Efficacy of pulsed UV-light was investigated for inactivation of S. aureus in milk. A surface response model was used to design the experiments. 12, 30, and 48 ml of cell suspension in milk was treated under pulsed UV-light for 30, 105, and 180 seconds. 0.1 ml of treated and untreated samples was spiral plated on Baird-Parker agar and incubated at 37oC for 24 h. The colonies were then enumerated and log10 reduction was calculated. The log10 reduction obtained varied from 0.16 to 8.55 log10 CFU/ml demonstrating the ability of pulsed UV-light to inactivate Staphylococcus aureus. The effect of treatment time, time*distance interaction, and time*volume interaction were found to be significant (p<0.05). Maximum log10 reductions were obtained for (i) 8 cm sample distance from UV-strobe, 30 ml sample volume, and 180 sec treatment time combination and (ii) 10.5 cm sample distance from UV-strobe, 12 ml sample volume, and 180 sec treatment time combination.