Congratulations to Berkley Conner, Department of Communication Studies Graduate Student, for receiving the Jane A. Weiss Memorial Dissertation Scholarship. This scholarship is awarded to a University of Iowa PhD Candidate whose dissertation and community engagement focus on issues pertaining to women.

Berkley studies rhetorics of health and medicine, specializing in menstruation discourses. Her dissertation deploys rhetorical historiography to trace biopolitical strategies of menstrual containment between the 1870s and 1970s. She attends to moments of medical history, contingency, and shifts in the meaning and struggle over expertise of menstrual care to argue that menstrual containment is tethered to and co-constitutes gender, race, and nation. Her project highlights menstrual politics as a central, yet underexamined, dimension of reproductive justice.

Berkley wonderfully represents our mission to position students to have a positive and productive impact on the world. Congratulations, Berkley!