Dr. Tanski earned his A.B. in chemistry from Vassar College in 1995. He received a Ph.D. from Cornell University in 2000, after working in the field of inorganic chemistry with Peter T. Wolczanski. After completing a postdoctoral appointment with Gerard Parkin at Columbia University, Dr. Tanski spent time as a substitute assistant professor at the City University of New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice before returning to Vassar as an assistant professor in 2003.

Currently, Dr. Tanski is serving as a Member-At-Large of the Mid-Hudson Section of the American Chemical Society (ACS). At Vassar, Dr. Tanski is the Assistant Director of the Undergraduate Research Summer Institute (URSI), serves as a member of the Pre-Medical Advisory Committee, and is the Principal Investigator on a grant from the National Science Foundation supporting a single crystal X-ray diffraction facility.