Aprilfaye Manalang

Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies | Norfolk State University

Aprilfaye Manalang is an Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at Norfolk State University, a Historically Black College/University in Virginia. She trained in the Social Sciences (University of Chicago, MA) and the Humanities (Bowling Green State University, PhD) and ranked as a top 10 finalist for the National Hiett Prize in the Humanities, an “annual award aimed at identifying young candidates…whose work shows extraordinary promise and has a significant public component related to contemporary culture.” 

Manalang internationally expanded her current project, “Filipino American Nurses: Faith and Professional Communities in the Age of COVID and Anti-Asian Hate,” with her co-investigators, Drs. David Chao and Christian Gloria: We secured the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health; Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life; and U-C Berkeley, Asia Pacific American Religions Research Initiative (APARRI); grants. Manalang also won the 2023-2024 competitive Sabbatical Grant for Researchers from the Louisville Institute. Moreover, Princeton Theological Seminary (Spring/Summer 2025); the Asian American Center, UNC Chapel-Hill; and Religion, Race, and Democracy Project, University of Virginia, appointed Manalang as a visiting scholar. Religion and Public Life, Harvard University Divinity School also lends support for this project.

A former Georg-Bollenbeck (University of Siegen) and Virginia Humanities fellow, in her previous research, Manalang secured the internationally competitive Early Career Award from the John Templeton Foundation for her project “Minority Millennials and the Rise of ‘Religious Nones.” Her research interests include: Immigration; Postcolonialism; Diaspora; Sociology of Religion; Citizenship; Race/Ethnicity.​