Taina began her career with 10 years as staff illustrator with the Walter Reed Biosystemactics Unit at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC.  She has a BS in Biology and a BFA in Printmaking.  She received her board certification as a medical illustrator in 1994 and spent 16 years running a busy freelance illustration business.  Since 2010 she has been the staff illustrator at the US Department of Agriculture’s Systematic Entomology Lab, at the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of Natural History.

She works primarily in digital media.  Her markets include magazines and scientific journals, trade and text books, advertising, and museum and medical legal exhibits.  A few of her clients include the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Society of Health-Systems Pharmacists, American Mosquito Control Association, Carnegie Institute, Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Chanticleer Press, Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, the Endocrine Society, Entomological Society of America, Maryland Public Television, Minnesota Conservation Volunteer Magazine, National Institutes of Health (NIH), Saunders College Publishing, Science News, Smithsonian Institution, StackPole Books, Timber Press, Inc, numerous law firms in the DC metro area, as well as many grant-funded scientists at national and foreign universities, NGO’s, museums, and research institutions.

Taina is currently a board member of ASCRL, the American Society for Collective Rights Licensing. Her volunteer work with professional organizations began with serving as Executive Director of the Washington Women’s Arts Center, 1982-84.  Since then she served six 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, and served four years on the Board of the Vesalius Trust.  In the capacity of GNSI representative, she also served on the Board of the 1994 World Congress on Biomedical Communications during the two year planning process.