Dr. David W. Hylan is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, LGBTQ+ advocate, educator, and longtime nonprofit leader whose work has focused on disability advocacy, LGBTQ+ equality, and preserving overlooked histories from the American South.

For more than thirty years, Hylan served as Executive Director of the Betty and Leonard Phillips Deaf Action Center in Shreveport, Louisiana, where he became widely recognized for his leadership in deaf services, sign language accessibility, and nonprofit administration. He holds a doctorate in leadership studies from Louisiana State University with a concentration in nonprofit leadership.

Hylan co-directed and produced the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Film of the Year-winning documentary Small Town Rage: Fighting Back in the Deep South with Raydra Hall. Narrated by Lance Bass, the film documented the history of ACT UP Shreveport and the activists who challenged fear, silence, discrimination, and political indifference during the AIDS crisis in Northwest Louisiana.

His first book, Small Town Rage: Fighting Back in the Deep South, expands significantly beyond the original documentary through oral histories, archival research, interviews, and personal testimony, preserving a rarely documented history of HIV/AIDS activism in the Deep South.

Hylan currently lives in Mexico with his husband, Troy Hylan.