UCU Foundation Board & Leadership
Director, Chairman and President
Taras Szmagala, Jr. biography
Taras Szmagala, Jr. currently serves as a senior vice president with Eaton, a power management company with $18 billion in annual sales and 92,000 employees in more than 175 countries. In his role, Taras is responsible for managing Eaton’s public relations and corporate communications functions worldwide.
In addition to his role as UCEF board chair, Taras also serves on the board of University Circle, Inc., Cleveland’s premier arts, education, and medical district, as well as the United Way of Greater Cleveland. He holds a B.A. and J.D. from the University of Virginia.
Director
Anne Chermak Dillen biography
Post-Foreign Service, Anne has focused her efforts on Ukraine’s democratic development by organizing women’s leadership projects and supporting Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU). She is Founder and Chair, San Francisco Friends of UCU. In 2018, she created and taught a course on Global Issues in Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs in UCU’s Masters Program in Media Communications.
CV Highlights:
- Board of Directors, Program Director, International Women’s Forum, Northern California;
- Delegate to OSCE Observer Mission for Ukraine’s 2014 Presidential Elections;
- Visiting Fellow and Diplomat-in-Residence, Center on Public Diplomacy at the Annenberg
School, University of Southern California, Los Angeles; - Minister Counselor for Public Affairs, U.S. Embassy Berlin;
- Minister Counselor for Public Affairs, U.S. Embassy Moscow;
- Deputy Director, Office of Public Diplomacy, Newly Independent States (former USSR), U.S. Department of State;
- Press Attaché, U.S. Embassy Bonn and Berlin;
- Deputy Coordinator, Office of the President’s East European Initiative;
- Cultural Attaché, U.S. Embassy Rome;
- Senior Policy Officer, Office of East European and NIS Affairs, U.S. Information Agency;
- University of Michigan graduate, with honors in History and Russian language and literature.
Director
Lyubomyr Tarnovskyy biography
Lyubomyr Tarnovskyy is currently Vice Rector for administration and finance at Ukrainian Catholic University
Lyubomyr Tarnovskyy has been UCU Vice-Rector for Administration and Finance since 2018. He is a specialist in economic questions, management, investment management and business budgeting and a professor in master’s programs and programs of management development at the UCU Business School (LvBS).
His research interests include finances, management, and the activities of non-profit organizations.
Lyubomyr Tarnovskyy previously served as Head of the Financial Department of Ukrainian Catholic University. In 2012, he was acting director of operations of the Ukrainian Catholic Education Foundation in Chicago (USA).
He has wide experience in managing the finances of universities and non-profit organizations. He is the chairman of the board of the charitable organization Ukrainian Education Platform and a member of the advisory councils of the civic organization Building Ukraine Together, the Dzherelo Rehabilitation Center, and the Emmaus Center.
In 2008, he earned a master’s degree in economic theory at Ivan Franko National University in Lviv.
Director
Boris Lushniak biography
Rear Admiral (retired) Boris D. Lushniak, MD, MPH, has been Dean of the School of Public Health at the University of Maryland since January 2017 after serving as Department Chair of Preventive Medicine and Professor of Dermatology at the Uniformed Services University. He was the US Deputy Surgeon General (SG) from 2010-15, Acting SG from 2013-14, and was responsible for the 50th Anniversary SG’s Report on Smoking and Health and the SG Call to Action to Prevent Skin Cancer. During the Ebola response in 2015, he commanded the US Public Health Service (USPHS) Monrovia Medical Unit in Liberia.
He attended Northwestern (BS 1981, MD 1983) and Harvard (MPH 1984) and completed residencies in family medicine and dermatology and is certified in dermatology and preventive medicine (occupational). He began his USPHS career in 1988 in the Epidemic Intelligence Service and served with NIOSH until 2004 and was part of the team at Ground Zero and the CDC anthrax team. In 2004 he transitioned to the FDA in the Office of Counterterrorism and was appointed FDA Assistant Commissioner in 2005. He retired from the USPHS in 2015 as a two-star Rear Admiral after 27 years in the uniformed services.
Director
Catherine Stecyk biography
Catherine Stecyk is Director of the Center for Research & Fellowships (CRF) at Villanova University, where she leads a team of six and directs a portfolio of undergraduate and graduate research programs, processes for nationally competitive scholarships and fellowships, and the Villanova Presidential Scholars Program. Previously, Catherine worked with the HealthMap Informatics Program at Boston Children’s Hospital and with the International HIV/AIDS Alliance in Kyiv, Ukraine. Catherine was a Fulbright US Student Fellow in Ukraine (2010-11), where she conducted research on the work of nonprofit organizations in healthcare. As a Fulbright fellow, she was based at the Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU). She completed her BS at the University of Notre Dame, MPH at Boston University, and MBA at Villanova University. She is a member of the Board of Directors for the Ukrainian Catholic University Foundation and also volunteers for Philadelphia Futures and Clarifi in Philadelphia.
Director
Nataliya Anon biography
Nataliya is driven by her passion to help Ukraine in its fight for independence and basic human dignity; she is inspired by the powerful story of UCU which cultivates the new ethical leaders of Ukraine’s tomorrow.
Director
Nancy Boinott biography
Nancy Frasco Boitnott is a former International Tax Partner with Ernst & Young. In 2005, she
founded her own firm, providing tax consulting services to Fortune 100 companies. Nancy is a certified volunteer for the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program, which offers free income tax assistance to senior citizens and lower-income taxpayers.
She also volunteers with the English as a Second Language (ESL) program, tutoring non-English speaking adults. Nancy, a certified public accountant (inactive), holds both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in accountancy.
Director
Orest Deychakiwsky Biography
Orest Deychakiwsky worked at the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (Helsinki Commission), an independent US government agency, from November 1981 to May 2017. His country responsibilities throughout most of his tenure included Ukraine, Belarus, and Bulgaria, and, at various times, Romania, Moldova and Hungary. Prior to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, he worked on emigration and family reunification cases, Soviet political prisoners and other human rights issues. Other positions held at various times included Intern Coordinator, NGO liaison, and Security Officer.
While at the Commission, Orest served as a member of official US delegations to numerous conferences and meetings of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and its predecessor, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). He observed nearly three dozen elections in nine countries, mostly for the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly.
Orest is a Senior Advisor at the U.S.-Ukraine Business Council and Board Member of The Washington Group (TWG). He serves on the Auditing and Grants committees of the Shevchenko Scientific Society of America (NTShA). Orest is a columnist for The Ukrainian Weekly and Vilni Media. Past NGO activities include Co-chair, Transatlantic Task Force for Ukraine (TTFU); Board Vice-Chair, U.S.-Ukraine Foundation; Fellowship Fund Director and President of The Washington Group (1998-2000), and in the late 1970s/early 1980s, the Smoloskyp Organization in Defense of Human Rights in Ukraine.
Orest is the recipient of Ukraine’s State Order of Yaroslav the Wise V degree and the Order of Merit III Degree and other Ukrainian government awards, as well as awards from the Government of Bulgaria and various Ukrainian and Belarusian diaspora organizations. He holds a B.A. from the University of Notre Dame and an M.A. from Georgetown University in Government and International Relations.
