Pertti Pelto, ABA_KaB, is son of Jenny and Jaakko Pelto and grandson of Gustaf Adolf Baehr.
Pertti J. (Bert) Pelto, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the University of Connecticut, studied and researched anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1960, his doctoral thesis of Sevettijärvi Skolt Saami herders in Lapland were published under the name: Individualism in Skolt Lapp Society (Finnish National Archive No. 16. 1962).
His later research on the effects of the use of snowmobile in reindeer herding and its social economics in Skolt Saami society was published under the name of The Snowmobile Revolution (Pelto 1973).
His most famous publications deal with anthropological methods of field research. For example, his 2017 book, Mixed Methods in Etnographic Research: Historical Perspectives, presents Finnish scholars, such as M.A. Castrén, Karl Nickul etc.
For years, Pertti Pelto was the Head of the University of Connecticut’s studies of Medical Anthropology.
Pertti Pelto retired in 1992 to lecture till the year 2013 in Bangladesh, India and Nepal on field research methods especially on ethnography of medicine.
Pertti Pelto celebrates his 94th birthday in Connecticut among his close family.
