Majors: Anthropology and biology
Thesis: “Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza H5N1 in Vietnam: An Anthropology of Epidemiology”
Summary: “Bird flu is complicated, so wash your hands a lot when you hang with ducks.”
Duck Running
To understand the human-animal interactions that help spread the deadly H5N1 avian flu virus, Sheth studied the traditional Vietnamese practice of “vịt chạy đồng,” or “duck running,” in which a farmer runs his flock from one rice paddy to another.

Sheth grew up in Rhinelander, Wis., “surrounded by kids who milked goats and tended pigs before going to school in the morning.” Sheth was no farmer’s daughter, though: her parents are doctors (mother a pediatrician, father an ENT), and she was determined to be a doctor too—but the animal kind. This fall, Sheth heads to the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine.

So why did she write a thesis in anthropology? Blame it on a first-year course. In “Case Studies in Global Health,” “I learned that disease is not just a biological phenomenon,” says Sheth. “Political, economic, sociocultural, religious values all contribute to pathogen emergence.”

She also learned that 60 percent of human diseases leap from animals to humans.

One such disease, the deadly H5N1 avian flu virus, in one place, Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, called for a more nuanced investigation. With the help of her thesis adviser, G. Henry Whitcomb 1874 Professor of Anthropology Deborah Gewertz, Sheth turned to the local practice of vịt chạy đồng. Literal translation? “Duck running.”

In the Delta, duck farmers run their flocks from one rice paddy to the next. It’s an ancient reciprocal system. “Rice farmers let the ducks scavenge for leftover husks of rice,” explains Sheth. “And ducks provide fertilizer for their paddies, plus eliminate pests.”

How does the flu virus spring from vịt chạy đồng? Several ways: global warming has changed the range of wild fowl, who now commingle with these domesticated ducks. And duck farmers often raise pigs too. Viral transfer can occur between species—and jump to humans.

Epidemiologists advise washing hands frequently and culling affected flocks, but “a duck is not just a duck” in Vietnam, says Sheth. They’re given as meaningful gifts, and killing one (rather than slaughtering it for food) is anathema. “You have to go beyond biology when you study the spread of infectious disease,” she adds. “You have to understand the cultural practices, too.”