Theresa Wolin

Theresa "Terri" Marie Burke-Wolin, Age 65, died peacefully in her sleep at home in Greenburgh, NY on January 10th, 2026 after a 25+ year battle with Multiple Sclerosis and most recent recovery from Renal Carcinoma.

Terri was born on January 22, 1960 in Massachusetts where she was the second oldest of five siblings, whom she loved and cared for until the day she died. She moved to Oklahoma City at a young age, eventually attending Enid High School and working at Braum's serving ice cream. From the stories she told, she was a shy and quiet girl once upon a time, working, playing softball and helping take care of her siblings while her mother worked two jobs and her father worked as a police officer. In her early teenage years, after the divorce of her parents, she assumed responsibility for caring for her siblings until she left for college at Tulane University to study Chemical Engineering.

At Tulane, Terri began to thrive in her studies and continued to work to pay her own way. In her free time, she would play softball and would sky-dive, "but only 12 times". Apparently, she put ice down the shorts of the person who packed her parachute and did not want to risk a 13th jump. In New Orleans is where she would meet her husband of 38+ years, Michael Wolin, where he used to swim and she worked as the pool attendant. One day Mike forgot his bathing suit; she found it, and their life story began. Later on, on October 25, 1987 they were married while living in Greenbugh, NY.

After college Terri would start working on experiments in a lab with Phil Kadowicz at Tulane, where in collaboration with Mike, inspired the science that led to Dr. Louis Ignarro getting the Nobel Prize in 1998 for Nitric Oxide. That science would later be made newsworthy due to its role in the medications used for male enhancement.

She moved to NY in 1983 to pursue her PhD at New York Medical College, where she became an Associate Professor in Pharmacology and ran a laboratory grant funded by the NIH, AHA and other agencies, continuing her scientific work. She was later the recipient of American Heart Associate Established Investigator Award. Terri took pride in her work, a young woman who paved her own way from Oklahoma to New York as a PHD Professor and Researcher. She took more pride in reminding any person, specifically men, who got in her way that her more recent experiment involved removing male anatomy from mice for research purposes. She worked hard and joked all along the way. Terri was tough, but that was because she had to be, always taking care of anyone and everyone that needed her.

After being forced into retirement at a young age in the late 1990s due to Multiple Sclerosis, Terri took on a new role and that was Momma Wolin. She was a Momma from her teenage years with her siblings and was primed and ready to raise her three children and any others that came into her house. She would cook for you, care for you, make you laugh and yell at you when you needed it. She became a Momma to A LOT of us. Even when she was not well enough, she would take her cane or wheel chair down the block to the local school to yell at the neighborhood bully or drag the high school baseball team (that hadn't won a game) onto the field to hit infield and teach them how to swing a bat. Terri would go on to be the president of the Elmsford Little League and to have major roles in running her children's swim teams and competitions. As the years went on, and her kids went off to college, her body diminished but her strength never wavered. She would love to drive across the country back to her friends in Colorado and California, but more importantly down to Oklahoma to be with and help her siblings. You could never tell Terri the word No. If you did, well...she would do it just to spite you.

Her later years of life were not boring, bedridden or without excitement. She traveled to Ireland, Scotland and New Zealand, walked (as best as she could) on glaciers, took cross country road trips with Seth and even became a bit of horticulturalist. Her strength and love were relentless until the day she died. While trying to break out of the hospital beds and yelling at the nurses because they put an alarm on everything, she worried about her children and was ecstatic to learn she had a granddaughter after her most recent surgery.

Terri is survived by her husband Michael, her three children Josh (Covéy), Seth, Sarah (Matt) and her granddaughter Keira. Her step-mother Judy. Her siblings Joe (Polly), Ken, Stephanie (Tim) and her nieces Allison, Cassie and Corrie. Her two dogs J-Wo, Skylar and her cats Roxy & Py-too. Terri is pre-deceased by her Mother Connie, her father Bill, her brother Paul and her brother Ken's wife Gail.

A memorial service for Theresa Wolin will be held on Wednesday January 14th at 10am at the Woodlands Community Temple 50 Worthington Rd. White Plains, NY 10607. All are welcome, as she lived through the memories of shared experiences. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that any contributions be made to The American Heart Association, Research Centers for Renal Cell Carcinoma or a donation of her behalf to your local food bank or animal rescue.