Janet was raised in Arkansas by her railroad man father and part time bookkeeper mother. Her father, a wise man, knew that education was the one thing that could lift you out of poverty and take you places you couldn’t go otherwise. He hoped she would go to college. She hoped she fell in love. She married Silent Bob when they were young (they are still married now that they are sort of old) and had three sons of whom Janet could not be more proud. Previous to them growing up and becoming men, when they were all under the age of 6, her mother moved in with the family and Janet went to graduate school. This was as unplanned as her third son and while not as joyous as that third son, was almost so, because as it turns out, Janet values knowledge as much as her dad hoped she would. Janet got her Ph D in Biology in 1997 and through her research has met the finest group of thinkers and researchers who have become friends, collaborators, and in only a case or two, enemies. 

Janet has been at Rice University in the statistics department for over 20 years.  She is not a statistician. She has projects that statisticians love. She’s an associate research professor which means that in between thinking about science, she chases money. To pay for those projects.