History major Michelle Birtja, ’08, recently presented a paper on disease and race in colonial America at a meeting of Phi Alpha Theta.

Birtja’s work, Small Pox and Disease: Effects on Disease on Racial Divisions in Colonial American, was among several papers presented during the annual regional meeting of the national history honor society May 12 at California State University, Northridge.

The paper examined the differences in understanding medicine, religion and culture between Native Americans and the white settlers. Birtja’s paper as well as others was praised by John Lloyd of California State Polytechnic University, Pomona for its sophisticated understanding and use of primary sources.

Birtja’s work grew out of a fall course introducing history majors to methods of historical research and writing taught by Assistant Professor of History Susanah Romney who supervised the rewrite of the paper for the conference.