Nataliya Plesha, 48, of Storrs Mansfield, CT, died July 21, at St. Francis Hospital, Hartford, after a sudden brief illness. She was an instructor in the Agriculture Department at the University of Connecticut and was also a Visiting Assistant Professor in Economics at Eastern Connecticut State University.
She was born Jan. 18, 1968 in Lviv, Ukraine, daughter of the late Lubomyra Smolnytska and Vasyl Plesha. In 1990, she graduated Summa Cum Laude from the Lviv Institute of Forestry and Wood Technology in Lviv. In 1993, she earned a PhD from the Ukrainian State University of Forestry and Wood Technology in Lviv. In 2000, she came to the United States as a Fulbright scholar at Fairfield University, Fairfield, CT. In 2001, she was accepted at Yale University and graduated in 2003 with a Masters in Environmental Management. She met Ukrainian violinist Yaroslav Tereshchenko at the Ukrainian Festival in Stamford, CT in 2000. They were married in 2001. At the University of Idaho, she earned a Masters in Statistics in 2006 and a Masters in Forest Products in 2008.After returning to Connecticut, She was awarded a Masters in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of Connecticut in 2011.
She was planning to defend her PhD dissertation in Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of Connecticut late this summer and had been invited to teach at Southern Connecticut University School of Business and Finance for the 2016-17 academic year. She leaves her husband, Yaroslav Tereshchenko and their son, Dariy, both of Storrs Mansfield, CT, her father, Vasyl Plesha, of Lviv, Ukraine, and many cousins. A Mass of Christian Burial will be held July 30, 2016 at 11 a.m. at St. Bernard Church in Vernon Rockville, CT with burial following at St. Bernard Cemetery. Memorial donations may be made to: www.gofundme.com/helpyareksfamily