Celeste Navas is a Latina feminist scholar. Born in LA and raised in Fontana her story reflects those from Southern California’s Inland Empire region. She is a scholar of art, spatial imaginaries, and community spaces. Celeste’s research has focused primarily on the collaboration of Latinx and people of color communities in the Inland Empire at community spaces where they utilize on-the-ground strategies to challenge dominant ideologies of the region. She received her PhD in Cultural Studies with a designated emphasis in Feminist Theory and Research from the University of California in 2026. Her dissertation, Remaking California’s Inland Empire, examines how Latine/x artists critically and creatively reproduce dignified visual representations of the region and its people amidst resource extraction, exploitative labor practices, and warehousification.