Janet Currie is the Henry Putnam Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University and the Director of Princeton's Center for Health and Well Being. She also directs the Program on Families and Children at the National Bureau of Economic Research. She has served on several National Academy of Sciences panels including the Committee on Population, and was elected Vice President of the American Economics Association in 2010, and President of the Society of Labor Economists in 2014. She has served as a consultant for the National Health Interview Survey and the National Longitudinal Surveys and on the advisory board of the National Children's Study. She is a member of the Institute of Medicine, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Society of Labor Economists, the Econometric Society, and the American Academy of Political and Social Science. She has served as editor of the Journal of Economic Literature and on the editorial board of the Quarterly Journal of Economics, and is currently on the board of reviewing editors of Science.

Her research focuses on the health and well-being of children. She has written about early intervention programs, programs to expand health insurance and improve health care, public housing, and food and nutrition programs. Much of this research is summarized in "The Invisible Safety Net: Protecting the Nation's Poor Children and Families", Princeton University Press. Her current research focuses on socioeconomic differences in child health, and on environmental threats to children's health from sources such as toxic pollutants.

She joined IZA as a Research Fellow in September 2003.