Taina Litwak began her career working for 10 years as staff illustrator with the Walter Reed Biosystemactics Unit at the Smithsonian Institution, after earning a BS in Biology and a BFA in Printmaking.  She left in 1993 to start a freelance illustration business. She received her Board Certification as a medical illustrator in 1994. Since 2010 she has been the staff illustrator at the US Dept. of Agriculture’s Systematic Entomology Lab, at the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of Natural History.

She works in digital and traditional media.  Her markets include magazines and scientific journals, trade and text books, advertising, and museum and medical legal exhibits.  Her clients have included the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Mosquito Control Association, Carnegie Institute, Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Chanticleer Press, Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, Entomological Society of America, the Endocrine Society, Maryland Public Television, National Institutes of Health (NIH), Numerous law firms in the DC metro area, Saunders College Publishing, Science News, Smithsonian Institution, StackPole Books, Timber Press, Wm. C. Brown Communications, Inc., etc.

Her volunteer work with professional organizations began with serving as Executive Director of the Washington Women’s Arts Center and as a Board member for 3 years 1982-84.  Since then she served 6 years on the Board of Directors of the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators (GNSI), as National President and as Treasurer, as local GNSI Chapter President, 4 years on the Board of the Vesalius Trust and is the current Vice President of the Illustrator’s Club of DC, MD and VA.  In the capacity of GNSI representative, she also served on the Board of the 1994 World Congress on Biomedical Communications during the 2 year planning process.