Omowumi Omole, an Interdisciplinary Humanities PhD candidate at the University of California, Merced, has been awarded the 2026 Dean’s Dissertation Fellowship from the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts (SSHA). The fellowship, valued at $27,000, supports her dissertation fieldwork and data collection in Lagos, Nigeria.
The fellowship is designed to help doctoral candidates make steady progress on their dissertations. It releases Omole from her teaching responsibilities for the Fall 2026 semester so that she can devote her full attention to research.
Omole’s dissertation examines how Pentecostal marriage teachings shape women’s political subjectivity, particularly their views on laws meant to protect them from violence. Her work looks closely at the debate over the non-criminalisation of marital rape in Nigeria, a debate that gained fresh attention after the widely publicised death of gospel singer Osinachi Nwachukwu.
Her ethnographic study follows women through marriage classes at two Lagos churches and examine churchgoers’ attitudes towards issues such as bodily autonomy and reproductive rights.
Omole has also conducted research among Nigerian diaspora congregations in Dallas, Texas, and plans to continue the study at a church in Houston, to see how the same teachings are embodied abroad.
“This fellowship has made it possible for me to be in Lagos, sitting with women in the spaces where these teachings are shared and lived,” Omole said. “Without the time and support it provides, I could not give this work the depth it deserves.”
She added that the timing matters, as Nigeria’s 2027 election cycle is expected to sharpen public debate on legislation protecting women. “Women’s voices are often missing in these conversations,” she said. “I want my research to put them at the centre.”
