Anna Catherine Grady ’19 arrived at Franklin & Marshall with veterinary school aspirations, drawn by the College’s consistent record of developing successful pre-health graduates and the opportunity to work at F&M’s vivarium. A few public health courses later, she discovered a love of research and a holistic approach to the discipline that reoriented her planned career path.

Fast forward a few years, and her graduate research on zoonotic diseases is being frequently cited in academic circles and has caught the attention of national media outlets like Scientific American.

Grady was part of a team at Washington State University conducting a field-sampling study of rodents along the border of Washington and Idaho, mapping the presence of the Sin Nombre virus — a virulent strain of hantavirus discovered in 1993 that spreads through the droppings, urine, and saliva of wild rodents. In the decades since, the disease has risen in public attention due to its transmission in environments where humans and rodents cohabitate.

The team’s findings, published in the Center for Disease Control’s journal “Emerging Infectious Diseases,” filled a critical research gap by successfully sequencing the first virus genome in the Pacific Northwest. The findings were striking: 30% had detectable antibodies and 10% were actively infected with Sin Nombre virus. Moveover, deer mice had a 30% antibody prevalence and montane voles had a 50% antibody prevalence. Their research also showed a high likelihood of cross-species transmission of the virus.

Grady credits her F&M education with giving her the foundational analytical skills and experiences to undertake complex scientific inquiry. She also values the enduring relationships she developed with her professors.

“It wasn’t just a professional or academic relationship. F&M faculty were personally invested in my career, where I wanted to go, and what I wanted to do with my life,” she recalls. She valued that investment even more after taking public health courses with adjunct professor Heather Hoffman, M.D., and Associate Professors of Government & Public Health Hollie Tripp and Jennifer Meyer.

“One of the biggest takeaways that I learned at F&M is this integrated approach called One Health, a concept that humans, animals, and the environment are interconnected. And if you impact one, you’re going to impact the others,” Grady explained.

Driven by a newfound desire to support community health, Grady joined the Peace Corps after graduation, teaching maternal health education in Rwanda before transitioning to graduate school and her career as a state epidemiologist. These experiences have reinforced her belief that public health research and scientific exploration should be at the forefront of the public interest.

“Science is important, research is important, and funding is needed for these to continue,” said Grady. “We need to know what is happening within these environments and these systems to be able to prevent spillover events or before outbreaks occur. ”

Currently, Grady is an epidemiologist for the State of New Hampshire’s Division of Public Health, where she collaborates with other scientists to track and investigate disease outbreaks that can impact the state and region. She says regularly uses skills she honed at F&M as a joint major in animal behavior studies and public health, as well as her graduate research at Washington State University for her current work. 

Photos courtesy of Anna Catherine Grady.