Pitt Political Science Professor Alberta M. Sbragia, the Mark A. Nordenberg University Chair and Director of Two Major Research Centers, Named Vice Provost for Graduate Studies

PITTSBURGH—Alberta M. Sbragia—the inaugural holder of the Mark A. Nordenberg University Chair, Jean Monnet Chair ad personam, professor of political science, and director of the European Studies Center and the European Union Center of Excellence at the University of Pittsburgh—will be the University’s new vice provost for graduate studies, Pitt Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor Patricia E. Beeson announced today. The appointment will be effective in October. 

“I am extremely pleased that such a highly respected academic leader has accepted my invitation to join our senior staff team,” said Beeson, who assumed her duties as Pitt’s provost earlier this month. “Dr. Sbragia holds herself and others to notably high standards and shares my commitment to the graduate and professional education that is at the heart of Pitt’s impact on the future of academic scholarship and the professions.”   

One of the world’s foremost experts on European politics and economics and a leading authority on the teaching of international affairs, Sbragia joined Pitt’s faculty in 1974 and taught American and European urban politics and policy. In 1983, she was a visiting associate professor at Harvard University; she returned to Pitt the following year, to become director of Pitt’s West European Studies Program, now Pitt’s European Studies Center. From 1993 to 1995, she chaired the European Union Studies Association, the foremost national association for experts in that field. Because of her leadership in the organization, the association is now headquartered at Pitt. 

In 1998, Sbragia was named director of Pitt’s European Union Center, one of the original 10 such centers in the United States funded by the European Commission. In 2005, the center was elevated to the status of a European Union Center of Excellence. 

Sbragia’s strengths as a teacher and mentor have been recognized internationally, through such awards as the Jean Monnet Chair, granted in recognition of her teaching and research related to the European Union, and Universitywide, as the first holder of the Nordenberg Chair and the 2001 Apple for the Teacher Award. 

Sbragia authored or coauthored several books and numerous book chapters and articles and has presented more than 200 papers and speeches around the globe. Her areas of expertise include comparative politics, with a focus on Western Europe; comparative regionalism; European Union politics; and comparative federalism. She is a member of several professional journals’ editorial and advisory boards. 

Sbragia earned her undergraduate degree from Holy Names College in Oakland, Calif., after spending her junior year studying at the Sorbonne in Paris. She earned her PhD in political science from the University of Wisconsin, where her doctoral studies included her pursuit of research in Italy as a Fulbright Scholar. 

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