Scheffel was professor of anthropology at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada.
Scheffel is the author of numerous scholarly articles and books, including In the Shadow of Antichrist (Broadview Press, 1991), a work on the Russian Orthodox breakaway Old Believers sect in Alberta.
Scheffel's efforts to help impoverished Roma rebuild their community in the Slovakian village of Svinia is the subject of a 1998 documentary film, The Gypsies of Svinia.Sexual abuse and sentence
In June 2019, a Slovakian court in Prešov found David Scheffel guilty of sexual abuse and illegal weapon possession and sentenced to seven years in prison.