Assoc ProfessorErnesto Vasquez Del Aguila

I am a medical anthropologist, Associate Professor in the School of Social Policy, Social Work and Social Justice, University College Dublin. I was awarded a PhD in Medical Anthropology by Columbia University, New York City. Prior to this, I began my academic career in Peru, where I received a BA in Anthropology and went on to be awarded an MA in Social Sciences and Health in Argentina.

I have worked as a researcher and taught in a range of academic institutions across several countries, including Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos (Lima, Peru); Georgetown University (Washington, DC, USA), University of the Philippines (Manila, the Philippines). 

My publications include a co-edited volume “Men and Masculinities at the Margin” (Routledge, 2026); a study on forced sterilisation in Peru (Global Public Health 2022); a co-edited book, “Unsustainable Institutions of Men: Transnational Dispersed Centres, Gender Power, Contradictions” (Routledge 2019) and a sole-authored book, “Being a Man in a Transnational World: The Masculinity and Sexuality of Migration” (Routledge 2014). My article “God Forgives the Sin but Not the Scandal”, originally published in Sexualities, was selected as part of the “Cultural Anthropology: Contemporary, Public & Critical Readings” (Oxford University Press, 2020). 

I am honoured to have received several awards, including the "European Award for Excellence in Teaching in the Social Sciences and Humanities", a pan-European award given across the European Higher Education Area (2023); UCD "University Level Teaching Excellence Award' (2023), the highest honour bestowed by UCD for teaching and learning; and a "UCD College Teaching Excellence Award" (2022). I received the "UCD Values in Action Award" (2023); the "Foy Justice Award for Exceptional Activism and Community Work" (2025). I was also awarded the Georgetown University "Doyle Faculty Fellowship" (2016-2017); and the 'Award for Excellence in Global Health' from the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York (2009).

I am the Managing Editor of the journal SEXTANT: Masculinities, Sexualities and Decolonialities, and Director of the UCD Observatory of Masculinities (www.ucd.ie/masculinities).