Alberto Ganis

Alberto Ganis serves as a Teaching Assistant Professor at Portland State University with dual appointments in the Honors College and the Department of Politics and Global Affairs. His pedagogy emphasizes equitable assessment and active learning to connect political studies with students' lived experiences, focusing on comparative local politics, writing, and law & society.

Dr. Ganis holds advanced degrees from institutions including the University of California, Santa Cruz (Ph.D. and M.A. in Politics), Erasmus University Rotterdam (M.A. in Media), and California Polytechnic State University (B.A. in Communication Studies).

• Ph.D. in Politics, University of California, Santa Cruz
• M.A. in Media, Erasmus University Rotterdam (NL)
• B.A. in Communication Studies, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

His research examines how historical legacies shape territorial governance and cultural identity across regions, with specific focus on Italian regional governments and immigrant communities in California. Current projects analyze belonging in Santa Cruz County immigrant populations and the intersection of sports, ethnicity, and nationalism in Germany through the Mesut Özil case.

Dr. Ganis actively supervises undergraduate researchers in community-engaged projects while publishing in interdisciplinary journals such as Social Sciences and Perspectives on Global Development and Technology.

• We Belong Project: Leads qualitative coding of 81+ immigrant interviews to identify belonging themes, developing Community-Initiated Student-Engaged Research (CISER) methodology
• Özil Identity Project: Analyzes electoral data and media content to explore fluid German identity boundaries across former East/West Germany