Dr. Cadena Gaitán obtained his PhD at the Maastricht Graduate School of Governance, within UNU-MERIT, in 2014. Previous to his current post, Dr. Cadena Gaitán accumulated a breadth of experiences in different industries. Within the cultural sector, he has managed the oldest and most important theatre in the city of Medellín. He worked for a government relations agency in Washington D.C, and collaborated with the International Cooperation Agency of Medellín, The Carter Center in Atlanta and the New York City Department of Health. He holds a Master’s in Public Administration (MPA) from the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies (Georgia State University), and a B.A in Business Management from the McCamish School of Business (Reinhardt University). An avid biker and tennis player, Carlos is also a weekly columnist for several media outlets in Colombia, and co-founder of La Ciudad Verde (www.laciudadverde.org), a think tank  advocating for urban sustainability in Colombia.

Research focus:
Dr. Cadena Gaitán’s work is focused on urban mobility and urban sustainability, with a specific focus in the developing world. He collaborates actively with the National University of Colombia, and EAFIT University in Medellín. His Ph.D research examined the conditions that determine variations in urban transport sustainability outcomes in metropolitan areas of Latin America. Current theory suggests that building urban sustainability cannot just be a local technical dynamic; rather, it must be constructed and contested at various governance levels and through multiple political spaces. Similarly, theory posits that present urban policies are predetermined by previous decisions, which implies high reversal costs for making major changes to the system. Deviating from previous studies that have focused on analyzing urban sustainability technically, and at the local level, his Ph.D work developed an empirical characterization of transport sustainability for Latin American metropolitan areas, and mapped the political determinants of urban sustainability.

	Selected publications by Carlos Cadena Gaitan
UNU-MERIT Working Papers
Escobar, D. A., Carlos Cadena Gaitan & F. J. Garcia, 2014, Accessibility analysis as an urban planning tool: Gas station location, UNU-MERIT Working Paper 2014-048
Escobar-García, Diego, Francisco García-Orozco & Carlos Cadena Gaitan , 2013, Political determinants and impact analysis of using a cable system as a complement to an urban transport system, UNU-MERIT Working Paper 2013-017
Cadena Gaitan , Carlos, 2012, Political determinants of sustainable transport in Latin American cities, UNU-MERIT Working Paper 2012-072
Conference contributions
Laar, Mindel van de , Carlos Cadena Gaitan & Nathan Kably, 2017, Motivations to enrol in Doctoral Education, The 17th Biennial EARLI Conference, hosted by the University of Tampere, Finland on "Education in the crossroads of economy and politics ? Role of research in the advancement of public good", More information
Theses
Cadena Gaitan , Carlos, 2014, Green Politics in Latin American Cities, Sustainable Transport, PhD dissertation Maastricht University / United Nations University, More information