BA Chemistry,  University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC), 1978
PhD Chemistry, Iowa State University, 1985
Postdoctoral - Department of Chemistry, The Pennsylvania State University, 1984 - 86

Assistant Professor of Chemistry, Virginia Tech, 1986-1992
Associate Professor of Chemistry, Virginia Tech, 1992-1998
Professor of Chemistry, Virginia Tech, 1998-Present
Chair, Department of Chemistry, 2010-present

Honors and Awards:
Chair, Gordon Research Conference on Radicals and Radical Ions in Chemistry and Biology, 2007
Vice Chair, Gordon Research Conference on Free Radical Reactions, 2005
Faculty Teaching Award, Department of Chemistry, Virginia Tech, May 2004
Alan F. Clifford Faculty Service Award, Department of Chemistry, Virginia Tech, May 2004

Kinetics and mechanism, electron transfer reactions, the structure and chemistry of free radicals and radical ions, radical ion rearrangements, oxygen-centered radicals

1. “How Solvent Modulates Hydroxyl Radical Reactivity in Hydrogen Atom Abstractions,” Mitroka, S.; Zimmeck, S.; Troya, D.; Tanko, J. M. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2010, 132, 2907-2913.
2. “Radical additions to allyl bromides. A synthetically useful, 'Tin-Free' method for carbon-carbon bond formation,” Struss, John A.; Sadeghipour, Mitra; Tanko, James M. Tetrahedron Letters  2009, 50,  2119-2120.
3. “Reaction mechanisms Part (i) Radical and radical ion reactions,” Tanko, J. M. Annu. Rep. Prog. Chem., Sect B, 2009, 105, 264 ˆ 284.
4. “The tert-butoxyl radical mediated hydrogen atom transfer reactions of the Parkinsonian proneurotoxin 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine and selected tertiary amines,” Suleman, N. Kamrudin; Flores, Joey; Tanko, James M.; Isin, Emre Mehmet; Castagnoli, Neal, Jr. Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry 2008,  16,  8557-8562
5. The First Calibration of an Aminiumyl Radical Ion Clock:  Why N-Cyclopropylanilines May be Poor Mechanistic Probes for Single Electron Transfer,” Li, X.; Grimm, M. L.; Igarashi, K., Castagnoli, N., Tanko, J. M.  Chem. Commun., 2007, 2648 - 2650.