Janhavi is a development economist by training, with a 2018 PhD in Public Policy from Harvard, where she focused on environmental economics and development economics. Her dissertation research focused on air pollution in India. Her previous research has focused on the impact of political affirmative action for caste and gender in Indian local governments. She graduated from Yale University in 2010 with a B.A. in Economics and in International Studies.

Janhavi now works in the field of maternal health and is the founder of Aastar (www.aastar.org), a Bangalore-based public health organization that works on improving access to high quality, respectful maternity care.