Erica Hensley is an independent health and data journalist based in Jackson. She focuses on identifying and contextualizing solutions to often under-reported public-health issues. Her COVID-19 work helped put national attention on Mississippi’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. From Georgia originally, she’s won Atlanta Press Club investigative awards for a series on lead exposure—work that she continues to expand upon in Mississippi. Erica is also a data trainer for collaborative reporting project of the Jackson Advocate and the Mississippi Free Press, “Equity and Resilience: Black Women and COVID-19 in Mississippi.”

Read Erica’s Mississippi Free Press work here.