Jenisha Watts is a senior editor at The Atlantic, a finalist of the 2024 for Feature Writing in the ASME (American Society of Magazine Editors) awards. Prior to joining The Atlantic, she spent five years at ESPN, first as a senior researcher at ESPN The Magazine, then as a features and commentary editor for espnW and finally a culture editor for ESPN’s The Undefeated. Before that, she spent seven years in New York City holding editorial roles at TIME Books, ESSENCE, and People. She has also freelanced for Complex Magazine, MTV News, Black Enterprise, and other publications.

Her work has been featured in anthologies, including The Best American Essays 2024, Southern Women: More Than 100 Stories of Innovators, Artists, and Icons and Black Told: 33 Dynamic Essays from Andscape. In 2024, Columbia School of Journalism awarded her the school’s First Decade Award, recognizing alumni who have made significant contributions within the first ten years of graduation.

She has spoken at Taconic Correctional Facility and Bedford Hills, a maximum-security New York State women's prison, where she also served as a keynote speaker. She’s been invited to speak at numerous universities, conferences, and high schools across the country. Watts was Bluegrass Community and Technical College (BCTC) keynote speaker for the college’s 2025 commencement ceremony.  She moderated American Psychological Association's headline event on “Youth Mental Health: How to Help a Generation Heal.”

She earned her Bachelor of Science degree in journalism from the University of Kentucky and a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University. She is currently working on her first book, an expanded version of her Atlantic essay Jenisha From Kentucky, which will be published by Ecco, a New York based publishing imprint of HarperCollins.