Janice Taitel grew up in a New Jersey suburb. As a little girl, she wanted to be an artist, but was too busy reading and running around with her cousins to make any art. She spent high school competing in and teaching gymnastics and working in her family’s treadmill factory. She hated art class because they made her do things their way and was third in her high school class due to a B in sewing. After graduating Boston University with degrees in Electrical Engineering and Physics, she worked briefly in semiconductors then, realizing learning that stuff was more fun than doing it, went to Harvard Medical School then completed a residency in Pediatrics at Boston City Hospital.

After residency, she moved back to New Jersey, where she raised her two children, practiced pediatrics at a clinic with a predominantly immigrant population, trained in Aikido, and opened an Aikido dojo. She stirred up a storm in 2019 when she formed a coalition and initiated the Petition to Support Women in the United States Aikido Federation. For this, she earned the official designation of Fomenter of Scurrilous Activity. Her book about that time, That Stupid Girl, will be out this fall.