Dr. David Román Islas Vela is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Iztapalapa Campus. He holds a Ph.D. in Cultural Studies from El Colegio de la Frontera Norte (2022), a Master’s degree in Gender Studies from El Colegio de México (2018), and a Bachelor’s degree in Human Geography from the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (2013). He is currently a Candidate member of Mexico’s National System of Researchers (SNII) for the 2024–2027 period.

His research agenda is situated at the intersection of cultural geography, sociology, and urban studies. His lines of inquiry focus on queer/LGBTIQ+ geographies, critical aging studies, the sociology of sexuality, violence, processes of gentrification, and contemporary dynamics of secularization. He is currently developing the research project Queer Territorialities in Mexico City: Agency, Space, and Power at UAM.

He is the author of Back to the Closet? Geographies of Countersexual Aging (2024), published by the University Interdisciplinary Seminar on Aging and Old Age (SUIEV) and the Institute for Social Research at UNAM. His recent publications include Queerification and Gentrification in Santa María la Ribera, Mexico City (2024) and Inequalities and Aging (2025). In 2025, he also published LGBTIQ+ Gerontospaces in Mexico City: Transgression, Agency, and Discrimination, based on research conducted for the Council to Prevent and Eliminate Discrimination (COPRED).