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“I’ve always loved math, and I especially loved applied math,” Leskovskaya says. “I started thinking about what was next. My then-husband and I joked that whoever didn’t find a job would go to Ph.D., and it happened to be me.”

After serving six years on the Brookhaven faculty, Leskovskaya decided to take on her next challenge by earning her Ph.D. in operations research from the ��Ʒ������ Lyle School of Engineering. 

Patience and persistence

By 2007, Leskovskaya had a 4-year-old and was pregnant with twins while studying for her Ph.D. In just two more years, she was balancing teaching computing technology part-time at ��Ʒ������ with a busy family life.  

“It was a bumpy ride, let me put it that way,” Leskovskaya says. “I was teaching part-time and thinking about giving up, but [the Lyle School’s Professor of Operations Research & Engineering Management] Dr. Dick Barr vouched for me. It was slow going because I had to earn money to support my family, and I was waiting for my green card, which meant I legally couldn’t work anywhere else. I had to stick to the plan and hope for good things.”

And good things came. By 2018, she was a visiting professor in the Information Technology & Operations Management (ITOM) department at the Cox School of Business. Today, Leskovskaya is a clinical professor of ITOM at ��Ʒ������ Cox, teaching classes in operations management, business modeling and graduate management decision analysis. 

That tenacity found its way into another part of her life, as Leskovskaya started to pay the same close attention to her health as she did to her career goals. 

During her time spent teaching at ��Ʒ������’s satellite campus in Taos, New Mexico, Leskovskaya not only built a closer relationship with her students but also picked up a new hobby: running on the treadmill during the snowy parts of the year. Already an inveterate hiker, Leskovskaya began training for her first half-marathon and soon was jogging eight miles with ease—a skill that surprised her. 

“I felt that I was so out of shape, having three kids, doing housework, working and studying, that I needed to do some exercises,” Leskovskaya recalls. “I’ve never seen myself as a runner, but I started to train with very small steps and was able to finish my first half-marathon in 2 hours, 5 minutes from start to finish.” 

She soon qualified for the prestigious Boston Marathon, opening the floodgates to an impassioned hobby she says helped support her mental and emotional health. 

Leskovskaya has since run half-marathons in 37 states, traveling during breaks in her busy teaching schedule. She also began traveling internationally to compete, hiking in Patagonia, and completed a 50K course around California’s Catalina Island.

But none of her previous experiences could compare to her biggest quest to date: taking on the inaugural  to climb Tanzania’s Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest free-standing mountain above sea level in the world at 19,340 feet tall.

Reaching new heights

It promised to be an unforgettable journey and a significant milestone for Leskovskaya, both because of the physical challenge and what the climb represents. 

Created by cancer nonprofit ZERO Prostate Cancer and sponsored by pharmaceutical company Tolmar, the ZERO Peaks Challenge raises funds for the disease that affects 1 in 8 men.

Leskovskaya, whose father suffers from an enlarged prostate, knew how crucial early diagnosis and testing could be. She signed on as one of four women out of 17 climbers who participated in the inaugural challenge, held in September 2025. 

The challenge wasn’t an automatic yes for 54-year-old Leskovskaya, but once she considered the impact she could have, she was all in. 

“I’d heard about [the climb], but it wasn’t top of my list until my father started to have some health  problems,” she says. “I wanted to do something for a good reason. I learned a lot of things about prostate cancer and how we don’t talk about it because there’s some shame around it, but there shouldn’t be. I got involved to advocate for free testing and bring awareness so that men can have those tests.” 

Although she was already in great shape from her consistent races, Leskovskaya leveled up her workout schedule about seven months before the climb, adding more hiking into the mix. In June, she took part in what she called “The New England Challenge,” running six marathons in six days across the Eastern Seaboard. 

She also hiked Mount Baldy, the highest peak in California’s San Gabriel Mountains, in July. She joined a friend for two consecutive high-incline climbs of the Manitou Incline and Pike’s Peak in Colorado in August. Add in a mile-plus of walking lunges each day in her final days of preparation, and she felt more than ready to take on Kilimanjaro.

Despite the challenges of the elevated altitude, the 40-mile route and not having access to a shower for eight days, Leskovskaya says the climb was an invigorating one for her—especially when she saw the sunrise over the Uhuru peak, aka “the roof of Africa,” and planted an ��Ʒ������ Cox banner at the top.

Bonding with her fellow climbers, including a man who was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer, was equally inspiring. After helping her climbing group collectively garner $500,000 for ZERO Prostate Cancer, Leskovskaya says she’s motivated to bring everything she learned from her participation in the climb into further activism around this important cause. She to bring a group of students back to the mountain for a future hike. 

“I’ve already asked if [a ZERO Peaks rep] would be willing to talk on campus [at ��Ʒ������],” she says. “I don’t call myself an advocate, but I’m planning on running on all seven continents just to show it’s possible to do things like this—to keep up your health and bring awareness to the importance of consistent PSA blood tests. I want to do as much as I can.”