Her research focuses on the physiological impact of poverty and inequality on the human body, with an emphasis "on the biological and social history of African Americans living in the 19th and 20th century urban US".
[1][2] Watkins is carrying on the work of African-American anthropologists William Montague Cobb and Caroline Bond Day.
After obtaining her PhD, Watkins spent a year researching urban African-American populations in the Southeast and East Coast of the United States.
[2] Cobb, whose work has influenced Watkins's research, demonstrated the effect of race on human health.
She hopes to give these underrepresented minorities a voice and to encourage more people of color to join the field of anthropology.