Upon graduating from George Washington University in 1971, Susan M. Golla (1948-1993) began her career as a research assistant to William Sturtevant at the Department of Anthropology of the Smithsonian Institution. In 1976, she received a research grant to study the Nootka Indians of Port Alberni, British Columbia. This work culminated in a doctoral dissertation, He has a name: history and social structure among the Indians of western Vancouver Island, from Columbia University in 1987. While teaching at such universities as Sarah Lawrence College, New York University, and City College of New York, she published articles on Nootka myths. At the time of her death, she was working on an annotated edition of selected Nootka texts, with detailed ethnographic and linguistic notes on texts by Edward Sapir. In her brief life, she made significant contributions to the study of Northwest Coast Native American societies.
From the guide to the Susan Golla Papers, 1960-1990, (American Philosophical Society)
