Amisha Padnani spends her days thinking about death. As an editor on the Obituaries desk of The New York Times, she works with a team to cover the noteworthy deaths of the day. In 2018, she launched the Times’ Overlooked series to tell the stories of remarkable people who were not recognized in their lifetimes—women and people of color who, long passed over by papers of record, might have otherwise been lost to history.¹
 

Elle Hunt: How did you come to join the Obituaries desk?

Amisha Padnani: I started on the desk in early 2017. Initially, my role was to think about the digital side: How could we be faster with breaking news, or gain new readers? Now I’m more of a traditional story editor, responding to that day’s deaths. We have some 2,000 obituaries already in our system that we have to stay on top of so that we’re ready whenever they’re needed. 

EH: How do you select who to feature?