Emmanuel David is an interdisciplinary scholar and artist whose work explores gender and sexuality in the Philippines and its diaspora. Trained as an ethnographer and documentary photographer, his research and his work as an artist focus on the lived experiences of Filipino/a/x subjects and their relation to labor, economic globalization, race, ethnicity, historical formations of capital, and U.S. empire.

As an artist, his creative work spans multiple mediums, including photography, video, and performance. He is currently working on a project that examines the rituals and material culture of folk religious tradition and revolt in the Philippines.

He is collaborating with artist Yumi Janairo Roth to explore histories of Filipinos in the American West. Their project on the Filipino Rough Riders has been included in exhibitions at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, the Autry Museum of the American West, the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver.

As a scholar, he is currently working on a book project about Christine Jorgensen’s performance tour across Asia and the Pacific in the early 1960s. His scholarly writing has appeared in American Quarterly, ASAP/Journal, Feminist Formations, Gender & Society, GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, Radical History Review, Sexualities, TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, Verge: Studies in Global Asias, and WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly.

His centenary edition of M. de Gracia Concepción’s Azucena, the first poetry collection written by a Filipino in the United States, was published by Persea Books in 2025. As a descendent of Concepción, he wrote an extended biographical introduction based on family records, archival documents, and the poet’s FBI surveillance file.

He is the recipient of a Senior Fulbright Fellowship in the Philippines, a Residential Fellowship at the National Humanities Center, and several awards for his scholarly articles, including the 2023 Distinguished Article Award from the American Sociological Association’s section on Sexualities and the 2019 Best Article Award from Society for Queer Asian Studies.

At CU Boulder, he teaches Introduction to LGBT Studies; Women of Color & Activism; Gender, Race, and Class in a Global Context; Queer Theory; and Critical Inquiries in Transgender Studies. He is a recipient of CU Boulder's Best Should Teach Award for excellence in teaching.

Photo by Carolina Ramirez Paez