Welcoming New St. Luke’s Faculty & Staff

 

Eleven new faculty and staff were introduced by Head of School Mark Davis this week at the first Faculty/Staff meeting. Davis shared these spoken remarks about each of the newcomers to the Hilltop:

Liliana is excited to begin her first year as an Upper School Spanish Teacher at St. Luke's. Liliana was born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She later moved to Italy to study Italian for five years, then moved to the US to continue her language studies. She obtained her Bachelor of Arts in Language and Culture from Purchase College and later earned her Master’s Degree in World Language, Secondary Education from Fairfield University. Liliana has over six years of experience tutoring, teaching, and homeschooling students at all levels of Spanish and Italian. She most recently taught Spanish at The Stanwich School in Greenwich at the Secondary level. Liliana currently lives in Stamford and in her spare time she enjoys being with her son Gianluca, spending time with family and friends, going for walks, cooking, and practicing yoga and meditation.

Bryan is St. Luke’s new Audio and Visual Specialist. Prior to joining the team at St. Luke’s, Bryan was a freelance videographer and audio engineer working with clients to take their video and audio projects from conception to execution. He has worked on countless projects ranging from albums and weddings to music videos. He is passionate about the arts and believes that everyone should have access to them. Although Bryan was born and raised in Connecticut, his family hails from Mexico and Haiti. Outside of the office, Bryan spends his time discovering new music, creating music, reading, and exploring and photographing interesting places. He also graduated as one of the top students in the Audio Engineering program at Mercy College.

Elaine Juran is very excited to be teaching 5th grade English at St. Luke’s—a dream come true for her, she says, since it is a collaborative, student-centered, and inclusive environment. Elaine earned a Master of Science in General Education and Reading, Writing, and Literature from Bank Street Graduate School of Education in 2012, and recently completed her seventh year of teaching. For the last four years, Elaine was the 4th and 5th grade teacher at Long Ridge School in Stamford. Prior to entering the teaching profession, Elaine practiced law in the area of Intellectual Property. Elaine was raised in NYC and still explores its unique neighborhoods for food, culture, and art. She also loves to travel, cook, run, read, and write, but most of all, she cherishes time with her family, husband Kevin and daughters Maria and Colette, both St. Luke’s graduates.

Lizeth Lopez joins the World Language Department after working in an array of different schools around Connecticut: from urban to suburban, and alternative high schools. Originally from Mexico City, she attended Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México for two years and finished her degree at Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU). She holds a B.S. in Managing Communications and worked at the Yale Peabody Museum reorganizing the paleobotany collection and designing and planning all the public events at the museum. Lizeth earned an M.S. in Foreign Languages with a concentration in Spanish Literature. She is passionate about bringing literature into the classroom and makes sure that all of her students engage in literary readings, even at the lower levels. She developed and coordinated the overall implementation and evaluation of the foreign language curriculum in different districts and coordinated and provided staff development opportunities for foreign language classroom teachers. After spending 12 years in the classroom, she decided to become an instructional leader and went back to school to pursue a Sixth Year in Intermediate Administration and Supervision. Lizeth likes to be involved in all aspects of the school and leads many initiatives focusing on equity and inclusion. When not teaching, Lizeth likes to spend time with her two daughters, read world news, history, and literature, and travel.

Candy Lu is joining the Upper School science department, and will also be assistant coaching the girls’ varsity volleyball and softball teams this year. Hailing originally from Los Angeles, Candy grew up playing boys ice hockey before getting recruited to play at and attend the Pomfret School in CT after being nationally recognized. Candy then continued her hockey career at Williams College, and received her B.A. in biology, with a concentration in neuroscience, in 2018. This past year, Candy worked as a boarding science faculty member at the New Hampton School in New Hampshire, teaching biology and anatomy/physiology, while also assistant coaching girl’s varsity ice hockey and softball. Candy recently moved to downtown Stamford and, in her free time, loves to write creatively or cook.

Originally from Mississippi, Meredith MacLeod moved to Texas as a teen and studied at the University of Texas at Arlington, majoring in speech communication. She won both state and national speech and debate honors. For the next 15 years Meredith would work at JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo, ultimately becoming a vice president. It was during her time in corporate America that she met the love of her life, who also happened to be from Garden City. They adopted a baby boy and also found out they were expecting a baby boy. Meredith decided it was time for a job change and became a teacher at an urban school in Dallas, Texas. She started their speech and debate program. Amazingly, four debaters from 6th and 8th grades would become Dallas city champions for debate and performance of poetry. At the same time, Meredith was able to take her passion for golf and start a girls golf team that qualified for regional state play after one year of competition and never swinging a club before. After searching extensively for a new school to further her teaching and debate career, she fortunately found “this gem of a school” (her words) and moved her family across the country to begin a new adventure and build a nationally competitive debate program at St. Luke’s by coaching and teaching debate and teaching entrepreneurship.

Michael is originally from Richmond, Virginia, and taught history in Maryland and Washington, D.C., for the last 10 years, at McDonogh School and Maret School. He has had the privilege of teaching students from 4th grade through graduate school, coaching middle and upper school soccer and tennis, and for the last two years serving as Director of Equity and Inclusion and the history department chair at an all-girls Catholic school in Baltimore. Before teaching, Michael spent a few years as a museum curator and director of exhibitions in Baltimore. He earned his bachelors in history and political science from Virginia Union University and his masters in humanities from Loyola University Maryland. Michael loves playing tennis on weekends and catching a spin class every once in a while. He also looks forward to working with the ABC House of New Canaan this year. But most important, Michael is excited to join the St. Luke’s community as an Upper School history teacher.

A native of Fairfield, Rob joins St. Luke’s as the Upper School History Teaching Fellow after teaching at St. Stephen of Hungary School on the Upper East Side of Manhattan for two years. No doubt Rob’s experience teaching kindergarteners, 2nd graders and middle schoolers at St. Stephen gave him all the preparation he needed to handle St. Luke’s Upper School students. A 2016 graduate of Fordham, where he majored in Business and minored in Philosophy, Rob will earn his Masters in Philosophy and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University in May. He has three sisters who all live locally, and he currently lives in Fairfield with his wife, Emma (who is also a teacher), and their newborn baby, Albie. Rob is also a self-described amateur mycologist and naturalist.

Jessie joins St. Luke’s as our 5th grade science teacher. He was born and raised in New York, residing in Rockland County for the last 23 years. Last year, he worked at the Elisabeth Morrow School in Englewood, NJ, where his role as a middle school science teacher extended beyond the classroom to serving as an assistant tennis coach and mentor to the 5th grade debate team. Jessie earned his BA in Biology from Dominican College, and in addition to his middle school experience at Elizabeth Morrow he has taught in several high schools, so he knows well where his 5th graders are headed. He has also worked as a lab technician, and his interests include visiting dog parks and driving anywhere for some good pizza! As Jessie looks forward to joining the 5th grade team and working with everyone at St. Luke's, he has only one request, namely, to please let him know of any good pizzerias in Connecticut.

Isabella, who is mostly called Bella, joins St. Luke's as an Upper School Math Teaching Fellow. Bella is from Danbury and attended Wooster School, where she served as a senior prefect and captained the varsity soccer team for three years. In high school she also was President of Youth Reacting to AIDS, in the Interfaith Aids Ministry of Greater Danbury, which meant that she led an annual AIDS conference for students, developing learning activities, coordinating guest speakers, and managing the overall event through weekly preparation meetings with members of the Interfaith AIDS Ministry. She graduated in May with a Bachelor of Arts in Applied Mathematics from the University of Connecticut, where she also made the Dean’s List every year while tutoring for student-athletes, mentoring and coaching students on academic probation, and delivering workshops on academic resilience, organization, and time in UConn’s Academic Achievement Center. Bella has family in Brazil with whom she often visits during breaks, since she loves to travel.

Ariana joins St. Luke's as the 7th Grade English Teacher Fellow. Ariana is a graduate of The Harvey School (’15) and Wake Forest University (’19) with a degree in English. At Wake Forest, Ariana served in various mentoring groups and special events, working with incoming freshmen, middle-school students from a local school, and children from around the community. In addition, she served as the President and Directress of the Wake Forest University Gospel Choir, coordinating meetings, rehearsals, and events for a group that had 30 performances on campus and in local churches while increasing membership in the choir by 50 percent. Ariana also was a student-manager for two years, assisting with the Official Wake Forest Athletics Volleyball Team and the Football Team. She also played women’s club lacrosse in college and basketball, volleyball, and lacrosse in high school, where she captained the basketball and volleyball teams. Ariana currently lives in Westchester County. She is a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated, a public service organization, and she enjoys traveling, reading, exercising, and shopping. Ariana is excited to be an involved asset to the Hilltop community.