Hanna Liss was the Harry Starr Research Fellow at Harvard University, Cambridge, USA, and has taught Bible and Jewish Biblical interpretation as well as Jewish Studies at Lexington Theological Seminary and the University of Kentucky . In 2008/09 she was an Alfried Krupp Senior Fellow at the Alfried Krupp Wissenschaftskolleg Greifswald.

Her research focuses on medieval Jewish biblical and commentary literature in Western Europe (1000–1300). Within this framework, she is primarily concerned with the handwritten textual tradition of Hebrew biblical commentaries as well as with biblical manuscripts. Another focus is the high medieval Masora tradition in Western Europe between the 10th and 13th centuries. In addition, she is concerned with the cultural and literary history of Jewish mystic circles (chaside ashkenas) in the Rhineland and the high medieval Jewish reception of the purity laws.