[1] After completing his education through a master's degree in Canada, he came to the United States (US) for a PhD in history at the University of California at Berkeley.
[2] Tanny, then a professor of history at Ohio University, was hired in 2010 as the inaugural Block Scholar, a professorship named in honour of the parents of former State Senator Frank Block (American politician).
[4][2] Tanny's 2011 book, City of Rogues and Schnorrers, explores Jewish life in 19th-century Odesa, Ukraine (then part of the Russian Empire), a free port and boomtown with a reputation for attracting "gangsters and swindlers..." along with ambitious men and women, some of whom attained great wealth.
[5][6] The Slavic and East European Journal, described City of Rogues and Schnorrers as, "serious and funny, informative and amusing, witty and well written.
"[7] Reviewer Anna Shternshis cited Tanny's unusual ability to draw on both Russian and Yiddish sources, which she considers to be an important contribution in a field where scholarship has often been confined to a single language.