Carlos J. Celis is a Ph.D. candidate in Public and Urban Policy at The New School. His research topics include state theory, social reproduction, and politics of expertise and technology. He has worked as a policy and design consultant in Colombia, Peru, Mexico, and the United States. He is currently based at the Urban Space Lab researching the aftermath of COVID-19 on immigrant caregiving systems in Queens, New York.

Carlos’s project at GIDEST will shed light on public care artifacts, infrastructures, and technologies to understand the transformations and novelties in the contemporary Colombian state. He will research two policies in Bogotá, Colombia: a School of Care for Men that aims to tackle patriarchal culture and teach men how to perform care labor, such as cooking, cleaning, dishwashing, changing diapers, and more; and the Care Blocks which seek to reduce, redistribute, and recognize unpaid care labor through the development of spaces (blocks) with a high density of public care services and supporting infrastructure, such as community centers, hospitals, kindergartens, soup kitchens, public laundromats, community gardens, and parks.