Born in 1950 in New Mexico, Janet was stricken with polio at age 2-1/2. Her mother was a registered nurse and conscientiously worked on Janet’s rehab program. The family lived in New Mexico, then in El Paso, Texas, and finally in Douglas, Arizona. Janet considers Douglas to be her home town. She has three sisters and one brother.
Janet graduated from Douglas High School as the valedictorian in 1968. She graduated from the University of the Pacific (Covell College option) magna cum laude in 1972 with a B.S. in Physics, a B.A. in Mathematics, and a B.A. in Interamerican Studies. She studied chemistry and physics at the University of Costa Rica as part of a semester abroad program. She received an M.S. in Physics in 1974 and an M.S. in Nuclear Engineering in 1976 from Purdue University.
In May 1975, Janet married James R. Stevenson, a fellow graduate student in physics at Purdue University. He earned a PhD in physics from Purdue University. They had two children: Morgan W. Stevenson, born in 1982, and Helen S. Westbrook, born in 1985.
From 1976 to 1989, Janet worked as a radiological shielding engineer at Sargent & Lundy Engineers, an architect-engineering firm in Chicago. Her work involved performing radiological analyses for nuclear power plants, including calculations for radiological design and modification, equipment doses, ALARA (dose reduction) reviews, and postaccident assessment.
In 1985, Janet became a Certified Health Physicist (American Board of Health Physics). In 1986, she became a Registered Professional Engineer (State of Illinois).
From 1989 to 2000, Janet worked as a radiological engineer and health physicist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Her work involved performing radiological analyses and reviews for design or modification of radiological facilities, performing and documenting operational reviews of planned radiological work, (including remediation, reactor, and hot cell work), and writing design documents, reports, analyses, and procedures. She used various computer codes involving shielding and isotope generation. She wrote the course material for and taught, with others, a course called “ALARA for Design and Operations Engineers”. She also served on the Reactor Operations Review Committee and as the radiological fetal protection coordinator and counselor.
Prior to being laid off from ORNL with many others, Janet submitted a whistleblower writeup to the Department of Energy, the governmental authority overseeing ORNL. In it, she detailed many failures to follow radiological procedures, harassment of her radiological safety group, pressures on the in-house safety organization, and issues with how radiological decisions were made. Following her layoff from ORNL, Janet pursued a whistleblower retaliation complaint with the Department of Energy, alleging that she was targeted for layoff on the basis of her reports, over a period of about five years, to her superiors and to DOE of the same issues given in her writeup. Over the next two years, Janet lost her lawsuit at the first level but then won at the appeals level and at the Secretarial level. In the belief that the harassment would continue if she went back to her old job, which her former employer assured her did not exist any more anyway.
After being laid off from ORNL in December 2000, Janet worked as a mathematics instructor at ITT and as a radiological protection specialist in the Radiation Safety Department at the University of Tennessee.
From December 2002 to May 2007, Janet worked on the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program (EEOICPA) team as a radiological dose reconstructor (health physicist for the MJW Corporation). In this capacity, she produced technical bases for dose reconstructions from old operational documentation and reports and prepared other dose reconstruction documentation, including running various computer codes. It should be noted that this position was not in the area of operational health physics, such as she had been working in previously for a very long time.
In October 2006, Janet’s husband Jim died of a pulmonary embolism, a heavy loss to her since he was a good and decent man and a true source of moral support to her.
After being laid off from the EEOICPA project when Congress downfunded it, Janet was never able to find another operational health physics position again, only some short-term gigs.
From September 2008 to the present, Janet has worked as a part-time tutor at Pellissippi State Community College (formerly Pellissippi State Technical Community College), tutoring physics, beginning chemistry, all levels of mathematics, Spanish, and beginning French.
In July 2013, Janet met again someone she had worked with at ORNL many years earlier, David K. Wilfert. They married in October 2014.
Janet’s leisure time activities include maintaining a large garden with many types of flowers, especially those used for drying; keeping up with a large greenhouse filled with succulent plants of various types; playing the flute in the Oak Ridge Community Band and the Tennessee Valley Ensemble; knitting; reading; and making musical arrangements. She has been the president of the Greater Knoxville Cactus and Succulent Society for over 15 years.
