He recently completed his dissertation “A Foe to Sad Oppression’s Rod: The Story of Gerrit Smith,” an excerpt of which was presented to the Ohio Valley Historical Conference in Bowling Green, KY in October, 2007. He received his Ph.D. in History from SUNY Binghamton this past December. Tanner has previously served as adjunct at Murray State University and West Kentucky Community and Technical College in Paducah. He has also taught classes at Binghamton University. He has an M.A. in American History from Binghamton, and M.S. in Mass Communication from Murray State University and a B.A. in American History and Political Science from the University of Rochester in New York.