Chiara Candaele is a postdoctoral researcher at NL-Lab. She specializes in the contemporary history of children and youth and is interested in the dynamics of power and care. Her research notably deals with the historical intersections of children and colonialism. She obtained her PhD from the University of Antwerp in 2023, with a thesis about transnational adoption in postcolonial Belgium. She was a member of the Flemish expert panel on malpractices in intercountry adoptions. She worked as a scientific collaborator on the research project Resolution-Métis (State Archives), where she studied the treatment and position of people of mixed-race descent (“métis”) during the Belgian colonization of Congo, Rwanda and Burundi (1885-1962).

She is currently affiliated with the NWO-funded project Child Separation (2023-2027) and is conducting research on child circulation and institutional youthcare in the Dutch East Indies and Indonesia (1808-1984).