 She is Professor Emerita of History at the University of Florida and served as Department Chair.Altman is noted as a social historian for her primary research into migration patterns and individual migrations in the Spanish colonial period and the effects of source communities in the Old World on the economies and social development of destination communities in the New World, and vice versa.Ida Altman was born in Washington, D.C. She graduated from Washington-Lee High School in Arlington, Virginia.