Dr. Jamal Watson is an award-winning jounnalist. He has held numerous roles at Diverse: Issues In Higher Education. He has been a senior staff writer, managing editor, executive editor and editor-at-large. He has written and edited for the publication since 2005. He is currently on the graduate school faculty at Trinity Washington University and has served as a professor and associate dean of the School of Business and Graduate Studies since 2019. He is a contributor to The Washington Monthly and a regular commentator on television networks. In 2025, Education Week listed him as one of the nation's top 200 university-based educators who influenced education policy in 2024. A native of Philadelphia, Watson earned his bachelor’s degree in English and Theology from Georgetown University, a master's degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, a master's degree in Higher Education from the University of Delaware and a master's and a Ph.D. in Afro-American Studies from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His writings have appeared in numerous publications including The Hechinger Report, The Baltimore Sun, and USA Today. He is the author of a forthcoming biography on the Reverend Al Sharpton and The Student Debt Crisis: America's Moral Urgency, published by Broadleaf Books in September 2025.
