Tanner received her bachelor's degree in biochemistry at Rice University in Houston, Texas in 1991.[1] She received her Ph.D. in neuroscience at University of California, San Francisco in 1997.[1] Tanner was under the advisement of Jon Levine where she used a combination of molecular, biochemical, behavioral and electrophysiological techniques to evaluate mechanisms that underlie pain and analgesia in mouse models.[2][3] Following her Ph.D. she was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University and the University of California, San Francisco.[4] In 2004 she moved to San Francisco State University where, as of 2022 she is a professor of biology.[4]
Tanner is a founding member of the editorial board and, as of 2022, co-editor-in chief for CBE: Life Sciences Education.[5]
Research
Tanner's research focuses on biology and science education research, specifically on developing assessment tools to understand how people from K-12 to practicing scientists conceptualize science. Her Ph.D. dissertation focused on the structure and function of vincristine-induced neuropathy in mouse models.[6] Her subsequent research was on metacognition and how students learn biology and thinking like biologists,[7] teaching strategies in biology classrooms,[8] and barriers to change in biology education in the classroom.[9] She has also worked on DART, the Decibel Analysis Research in Teaching, a software tool that analyzes classroom sound.[10]
