Our Team

Raluca is a teaching aficionado with a passion for flamingos, tourism and good food. A lifelong learner, she has a wide ranging academic expertise, holding several degrees including special education and tourism management. Her educational background also entails certificates in leadership, human resources, environmental awareness, social economy, teaching English a Second Language and Phonics instruction. A citizen of the world, she has recently returned home to Romania after having spent a couple of years in Dublin, Ireland.

She began her teaching career nearly a decade ago in 2011, when she started her own business – Lukico Workshops – aiming to bring a positive impact on the local community through unconventional design and non-formal education. She then joined the Creative Recycling (ReciclareCreativa.Ro) initiative in Romania where, as an educational coordinator, she practised instructional design, having created a one-year curriculum program for key stage 2, aiming to teach basic ecological concepts.

Later on she leveraged a number of European Eramus+ projects across France, Estonia, Finland and Italy as part of which, as a youth leader, she coordinated various educational workshops. Upon her return in Bucharest, she joined an afterschool clubs’ team – spending two years there as a trainer. In 2015 she joins an international school in Bucharest, as a Teaching Assistant and Special Education Teacher.

In 2017 Raluca graduated from the University of Bucharest – Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences. Soon thereafter, she moved to Dublin, Ireland where she successfully completed a full time CELTA training, becoming a Cambridge Assessment School certified ESL teacher. After almost 2 years of working and studying in Ireland, Raluca returned home to continue her teaching career as a homeroom primary teacher.

A strong believer in continous learning, she has recently completed an online course from the University of Toronto on Communication Strategies in the Virtual Age.

Alex has over 15 years experience in technology and business management roles, spent working in Romania as well as abroad for companies like LinkedIn, Oracle and IBM. Passionate about continuous learning, in 2017 he attended a Harvard Business School Executive Education leadership program. A firm believer in the transformative power technology can play in the education field during as well as post-covid19, he is the architect behind Lukico’s platform strategy.

With a Masters in Education and a PGCE from the University of Notthingham, Louise is one of our highly skilled international educators.

She has had a diverse teaching career which includes teaching English as a foreign language in academies and summer camps throughout Spain, to being a homeroom teacher across Early Years and Primary (3-11 years old learners).

She has taught in Spain, Dubai and Romania and is a confident user of several curricula such as the National Curriculum of England and Wales and the International Primary Curriculum(IPC).

Louise believes in building strong connection with her students by fostering collaborative inquiry communities inside and outside of the classroom. She believes in the power of her students personal experiences and elevates their prior knowledge by supporting them to build fictional contexts where the students have the power, the right and the agency to become experts in anything that they can possibly imagine. The layer of the make-believes gives the students the ability to explore any curriculum without any limitations.

She has built responsible teams of experts (the students) who, in the fiction, have worked for NASA, Scholastic, The Fairy Godmother and so many other important clients.

This imaginative inquiry is the pedagogy of Mantle of the Expert which Louise has qualifications in as a Lead Practioner and Coach. She has been published in International Schools Magazine sharing her experience of Mantle.

Louise also champions the social and emotional wellbeing of her students. She is a certified Mindfulness teacher from Mindful School USA, with experience in teaching Second Step, SEE and will undertake a course of Positive Education through the Geelong School, Australia.

Anca is a passionate, hard worker and inventive educator who demonstrates an upbeat attitude and consistency in her instruction skills that keeps her students engaged in the learning process at all times.

Ever since 2015, Anca started her teaching career in an international school setting, working with children from Reception up to Year 4. Aside from her classroom, she supported different educational projects as a collaborator for creative workshops and as a monitor and trainer for outdoor camps. Thus, her expertise showcases a tenacious approach on teaching for various contexts and learners.

During the pandemic, Anca proved to be open minded and adaptable, transitioning her know-how on Mantle of the Expert, previously practised in the traditional classroom, into the new online context.

As a certified SEE (Social, Emotional and Ethical Learning) teacher, Anca shows a willingness to reach out to those in need of support, advocacy or just the ones in need of a kind work. Thus, she became a link between the children from school and those from vulnerable groups around her city, sharing compassion to those who struggle academically or socially and to those who succeed and deserve her praise.

Moreover, she partnered with the MATKA educational NGO aiming to spread awareness on the needs and wants of children in marginal public schools.

She is currently a co-teacher for a Year 4 class, following the IPC curriculum with focus on social and emotional development and a “flamazing” online tutor, successfully incorporating fun games and activities into her lessons that require children’s active participation.

When she’s not teaching, Anca is drawing and making zines. Her passion for books and art has pushed her to organise zine making workshops for children. During the summer of 2020, Anca took it above and beyond, literally, in a residency in Hundorf, where she engaged an entire village community of children to collaborate in creating a colouring book.

We are so lucky to have Anca in our team!

With a positive attitude and a great openness for innovation teaching techniques, Sofia is one of our most experienced teachers. With a degree in Chemistry from FCTUC, University of Coimbra Portugal and a CELTA Certificate, Sofia has facilitated education in public and private schools for the last 20 years.

With a rigorous yet friendly approach, Sofia has taught Chemistry and Physics to students aged 7 to 18 years old from Romania and Portugal. She proves to be a versatile teacher, balancing class management with one-on-one lessons, while designing special programs for students to prepare them for the Chemistry National Exam.

As a pedagogic coordinator, she has a strong background in tutoring offline and online. Her expertise showcases learning plans following different programs, from the International Cambridge Curriculum and the IB Diploma Programme to IGCSE (Chemistry).

Sofia believes in building strong connections with her students, developing thoughtful goals for each of them, as she trusts they are no two students alike.

Sofia motivates her students to engage and take agency of their learning with one strong starting idea: everyone can learn as long as there’s a willingness to do it.

Alexandra has always had an affinity with the world's most powerful educational systems. She believes that high quality education is the key to a better society.

Hence, her educational background emphasizes on International Business and Business Strategy studies in Germany and Denmark respectively. One of her leadership bachelor’s courses in Germany particularly trained her as a coach. Moreover, she built on her approach of making the curriculum alive for children through the Mantle of the Expert Training.

With a structured yet creative approach, she has been teaching Mathematics and English to children aged 3 to 12 years old from Romania and Greece for almost 2 years. She has been tutoring her students both offline and online in a one-on-one lesson design. Her learning plans followed both the International Cambridge Curriculum and the Romanian Mathematics Curriculum.

She believes that everything can be taught and everybody can learn anything under three conditions: the WHY, the STRUCTURE and the CREATIVITY of the instructor.

When a strong motivation exists (the WHY), no challenge is too hard in the process of learning. Thus, she facilitates learning through stories and analogies with topics that students are passionate about in order to maintain a high constant level of motivation and engagement. The logical sequence of the lessons (STRUCTURE) is also important in order for the student to build gradually on insightful arguments. Finally, the CREATIVITY of the instructor is of crucial importance to boost a student's imagination to the extent that he/she forgets about the time while being taught.

We are proud to introduce you to one of our most experienced language teachers - Dana.

She joined our teaching team as an English language teacher and a Romanian teacher for both adults and children. With over 11 years of teaching experience, Dana helped many students pursue their academic goals and receive high scores at Cambridge exams. With a great energy and a growth mindset, Dana believes one powerful tool a teacher must have is being aligned with her learners’ needs and staying connected to them. As a tenured teacher at a Romanian highschool in Bucharest, she is an active contributor to transforming education. While engaging in professional development programs such as “The Parents School for Teachers” and learning new approaches to teach life skills, Dana is strongly recommended by all her former colleagues and students.

Moreover, she successfully completed an online course by Cambridge Assessment English and is now well equipped to face online teaching at its best, using the optimal tools for facilitating private and group lessons.

Welcome to our teaching team, Dana!

Jack is one of our youngest, yet imaginative, hard working and compassionate collaborator. Growing up surrounded by children, Jack developed a great understanding on how they learn and interact.

As an alumnus of Lancaster Royal Grammar School, he decided to nurture his passion for teaching by helping his younger peers with Literacy and Maths. Moreover, as part of InspirUs teaching program, Jack supported children to explore avenues beyond the confines of the National Curriculum for 2 years.

Originally from United Kingdom, Jack is currently living in Copenhagen, continuing his studies with a BA in International Business. His life experience took him to Asia and India where he lived for a while. Jack believes we must provide children with the courage to do anything, as he already did for some children in Nepal where he taught English.

Travelling to 19 countries, working with people and studying abroad helped Jack designing his long term goal - to establish a financial intelligence scheme to support families from underprivileged countries to understand how to transform their skills into profit, thus to promote financial autonomy.

Jack joined our teaching team after completing a Mantle of The Expert training and we are lucky to have him on our side!

Originally from the United States of America, Ben is one of the coolest teachers here, at Lukico.

With a Master Degree in Education from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Ben started his teaching career in 2013, in the public school system.

After a couple of years, he decided to share his passion for teaching outside his country so he became an international educator. For 7 years he travelled to China, Guatemala and Romania to teach History and English. There is no doubt that a vast international experience like Ben’s together with his warm, accessible and enthusiastic attitude makes him an amazing teacher.

Not only is he highly trained, with experience in AP, A-Level, IMYC, IGCSE curriculums, but he can easily “shift-gears” to deliver the best lessons. With a flexible mindset, he assesses his teaching throughout the lessons and finds new ways to present material to make sure that every student understands the key concepts and more.

We are delighted to have the opportunity to collaborate with Ben!