Tanja achieved her Master’s degree in Plant Biochemistry at the Technical University (Dresden, Germany) and her PhD at the Center for Plant Molecular Biology (ZMBP) in Tübingen, Germany. Her doctoral research focused on the functional characterization of 14-3-3 proteins and their potential interaction with the plasma membrane-associated protein NPH3.

Following her PhD, she worked as a technical assistant at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in the Department of Archaeogenetics. She later joined King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) as a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Professor Heribert Hirt. Since 2025, she works as a lab manager in the research group of Dr. Brande Wulff at KAUST.