Adrian De Leon is an award-winning writer, poet, critic, and public historian.

He is the author and editor of four books, including most recently: barangay: an offshore poem (2021), which was cited as one of 2021’s Best Canadian Poetry Collections by CBC Books; and Bundok: A Hinterland History of Filipino America (2023), which was awarded the 2024 Sally and Ken Owens Award from the Western History Association and received honors from the American Studies Association and The Shapiro Center for American History and Culture at The Huntington.

His forthcoming projects are: Balikbayan: A Revenant History of the Filipino Homeland, (University of Washington Press, 2026); Notes from a Wayward Son: A Memoir (Doubleday Canada, 2026); and Not Too Sweet: Essays on Eating While Filipino (Rutgers University Press, under contract). 

Adrian was a writer and co-host for A People’s History of Asian America (2021) and Historian’s Take (2022) on PBS Digital Studios. His recent commentary has appeared in The New York Times, NPR, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, PBS NewsHour, ABC Nightline, The Los Angeles Times, and more.

He received his PhD in History at the University of Toronto in 2019. He is a 2025 Distinguished Lecturer of the Organization of American Historians, a Trustee and National Scholar of the Filipino American National Historical Society (2020-2026), and was the 2023-2024 Jack and Nancy Farley Distinguished Visiting Scholar in History at Simon Fraser University. From 2019 to 2024, he taught at the University of Southern California as an Assistant Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity.

Adrian now resides in New York, where he teaches American and Philippine histories at New York University, and co-chairs Sulo: The Global Philippine Studies Initiative at NYU.

He is represented by Johanna Castillo at the Writers House Literary Agency.