Rhys Dreeszen Bowman has been selected as a Biliniski Dissertation Fellow for the 2024-2025 academic year. During the fellowship, Dreeszen Bowman, who uses the pronoun they, will focus on completing their dissertation — From Margins to Center: Community-Based Action Research with Transgender Communities in South Carolina.

The College of Arts and Sciences manages the Russell J. and Dorothy S. Bilinski Fellowships which provide $40,000 to graduate students in the humanities and social sciences to support completion of their doctoral degrees.  

Dreeszen Bowman is the first doctoral student from the School of Information Science to receive the award. 

“Receiving this fellowship is a clear indication of the importance of Rhys’s dissertation work. It is timely and relevant to communities throughout the state of South Carolina,” says Lyda Fontes McCartin, director of the School of Information Science. 

The main goal of Dreeszen Bowman’s dissertation is to understand how transgender individuals in South Carolina are able to find reliable information and what role libraries play in their ability to do so. 

“I’m curious how this climate is impacting trans people’s ability to find reliable information and survive in this state,” Dreeszen Bowman says.

Dreeszen Bowman went on to explain how the Fellowship will allow them to fully focus on their dissertation, easing the financial strain of being a doctoral student. 

“I’ve taught every year since I started the program and so being able to not have to teach — as much I love teaching and love working as a graduate assistant — but just being able to focus on my dissertation makes it feel possible to finish within the time that I’m funded by my program,” Dreeszen Bowman says. 

Dreeszen Bowman plans to conduct community-based action research by recruiting an advisory board of five transgender people in Columbia to assist with the project. The committee will review Dreeszen Bowman’s research questions and collaborate in the creation of an informational health care resource to be used by transgender communities across the state. 

By interviewing people across the state to get their viewpoints on their transgender healthcare ban for minors, Dreeszen Bowman hopes to make their dissertation reflect the issues faced by transgender people in both urban and rural communities. 

“The interviews will be with people all across the state of South Carolina, and I’m really hoping that I can represent a broad racial diversity and also find rural folks. We know that people in rural communities in the South are facing a lot more barriers than people living in the cities, in these really regressive, political and religious climates where it can be very difficult to be trans, so I’m really hoping to be able to represent a rural perspective as well,” Dreeszen Bowman says.

After completing their dissertation, Dreeszen Bowman hopes to find employment in academia. 

“I’m going to be applying for jobs, and I’m hoping to secure a job as a tenure track assistant professor at a university,” they say. “I’m hoping that being able to focus full time on the dissertation will give me the time I need to finish and also allow time for me to submit job applications.”