Janet Hathaway holds the Ph.D. and M.A. (historical musicology) from New York University and the B.M. (music history) from University of North Texas.  Her dissertation Cloister, Court and City: Musical Activity of the Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales (Madrid), ca. 1620-1700 concerns convents, chapels, and devotional music in 17th-century Madrid.  Dr. Hathaway received a Fulbright fellowship to carry out research in Spain, where she spent two years.
 
She has contributed an article on music and censure in 17th-century Madrid to Acta musicologica and has co-authored a descriptive catalogue of early imprints of Spanish song texts in the Hispanic Society of America (NY) and the New York Public Library (Reichenberger, 2007).   Her article on devotional music and public celebrations appears in Devotional Music in the Iberian World, 1450–1800 (Ashgate, 2007), which received the  2008 Robert M. Stevenson Award for outstanding scholarship in Iberian music.  Her primary areas of research include devotional music in public ceremonies in 17th-century Madrid, and music and identity in early modern Spanish convents.  She has presented papers on these topics at annual meetings of the American Musicological Society, as well as at the Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque Studies International Symposium and the annual meeting of the Society for Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies.

While in New York, she remained active as a performer of Baroque and Renaissance flutes, playing with such groups as BachWorks, the Washington Bach Consort and the chamber ensemble Les Sonnades.  Further performance interests include music of Ireland (Irish flute). She directs the NIU Early Music Ensemble, which performs repertory from the Middle Ages through J.S. Bach.