Janet is a social anthropologist by training. Janet has a PhD in that subject from the University of Cambridge – based on data from 18 months spent in Kenya 1982-1983, studying social support/protection for people living in poverty. Before joining the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) in April 2014, Janet was Professor of International Development at the University of East Anglia.

She worked for the Department for International Development (now FCDO) for 13 years, prior to moving to the University of East Anglia in 2000. She has worked in a number of different countries over the last 40 years including, Kenya, Uganda, Nepal, India, Bangladesh, Tanzania, Malawi, Papua New Guinea, Pakistan, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

She has been actively engaged in research on the social aspects of health since the late 1980s, including four years with Medical Research Council in Uganda 1989-1993 where she was responsible for setting up social science research in the Unit, the programme she returned to Uganda to head in 2008 up until March 2022. 

She has worked with the Africa Health Research Institute (AHRI) in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, since 2014 – supporting capacity building in social science.  She is an AHRI faculty member for social science.  She is mainly based in London and is currently the head of department of Global Health and Development at LSHTM.