Besansky was born in 1960[1] as the only child to Ukrainian immigrants who raised her near Washington, D.C.[2] She grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland and earned her first job at the Insect Zoo at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.
[3] Besansky continued to work with the CDC as a scientist following her fellowship while simultaneously maintaining an adjunct assistant professor position at the University of Notre Dame.
[5] Besansky was then encouraged by Harvard University professor William Gelbart to write a report proposing the sequencing of a cluster of eight Anopheles malaria vectors, including multiple An.
[2] In 2005, Besansky was recognized by the American Association for the Advancement of Science for making "significant contributions to understanding the molecular, population and evolutionary biology of Anopheline mosquitoes, major vectors of malaria in Africa.
Their findings revealed a closer gene connection between the species and how it contributed to their flexibility to adapt to new environments and to seek out human blood.
gambiae and closely related species in 2016 using long single-molecule sequencing technology and physical mapping of DNA directly to the Y chromosome.