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Tanya McRae started her first job in television two weeks after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania with a bachelor's degree from the Annenberg School for Communication. After working as an assignment desk assistant for ABC World News Tonight and Nightline in NYC, she went on to work for local, cable and national news outlets such as Channel One News, Torrance CitiCABLE, and the NBC affiliate in Palm Springs. During her tenure as a reporter at KMIR6, she was nominated for two local Emmy Awards in 2008 for investigative stories.

Tanya has also produced a variety of unscripted television programs for OWN, Lifetime Television, Bravo, A & E, Travel Channel, and many other networks. She loved the adventures she experienced while traveling to many different states and even a few other countries working on reality, lifestyle, travel, newsmagazine, and talk shows. She was nominated for two national Daytime Emmy Awards and won an Emmy in 2015 for Outstanding Lifestyle Program for the Oprah Winfrey Network series “Home Made Simple.”

In 2018, Tanya returned to her news roots as a reporter and multimedia journalist. She was named anchor and host of the award-winning public affairs program “In Focus SoCal” in 2020. She has covered major stories from the massive Woolsey Fire to the deaths of horses at Santa Anita Racetrack, the uprisings after the murder of George Floyd, and three years of the COVID-19 pandemic. Her goal as a journalist is always to tell compelling and thought-provoking stories in a way that encourages people to reflect on them for days afterwards, and maybe even look at issues in a new light. 

She has served on the Board of Directors for Habitat for Humanity in Palm Springs and the National Association of Black Journalists Los Angeles chapter (NABJLA). She has also been a member of the Women Leaders Forum, Women in Film & Television, Producers Guild of America, Writers Guild of America, and the International Documentary Association.