Dr. Janice G. Smith earned her A. B. from Cornell University in 1973, and she graduated summa cum laude in Chemistry. Her Ph. D. in Organic Chemistry from Harvard University. After graduation in 1978, Janice was an NSF National Needs Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University until 1979.

For over 21 years, Professor Jan Smith was a Professor of Chemistry at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts, where she maintained a research program in organic synthesis and she taught organic chemistry. After spending two sabbaticals at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, the most recent in 1997-1998, she decided to permanently move to Hawaii, where she continues to teach organic chemistry.