Birte Pfleger graduated with her PhD from UC Irvine in 2003. She began teaching at Cal State LA that same year. Her first book, Ethnicity Matters: A History of the German Society of Pennsylvania was published by the German Historical Institute in 2006. In addition to several book reviews, her publications include:
“German Immigration to Philadelphia from the Colonial Period through the Twentieth Century,” in Global Philadelphia: Immigrant Communities, Old and New, Ayumi Takenaka and Mary Osirim, eds. (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2010).
“John Henry Keppele (1716-1797),” Immigrant Entrepreneurship: German-American BusinessBiographies, 1720-the Present, Volume 1: From the Colonial Economy to Early Industrialization, 1720-1840, ed. Marianne Wokeck. Online project launched in 2010 by the German Historical Institute, Washington, http://www.immigrantentrepreneurship.org/
She is currently researching the life and legacy of Kurt Molzahn, a German-born Lutheran clergyman in Philadelphia convicted of espionage for Nazi Germany in 1942.