About SoniaI am my best self in education.
Education is the place where I think, research, write, and stay in relationship with ideas, with people, and with the real lives of children and adults. It is where my professional path, personal values, and long-term questions meet. |
|
I hold a PhD in Educational Sciences, with a thesis on Education for Sustainable Development.
Over the past two decades, I have worked across research, building an educational model, teacher initial and continuing training, and community building, in Romania and internationally.
I am a co-founder of Green School and the founder of Fearless School - projects born from a long-standing commitment to education rooted in care, responsibility, and respect for both children’s autonomy and nature.
My work sits at the intersection of research and practice. I am particularly interested in Nature-Based Education, Self-Directed Education, Psychological Safety, Emotional Security and the role of adults in creating learning environments where children and young people can grow with dignity, trust - in which they feel belonging and happiness.
I have been a visiting researcher at the University of Vienna and a research scholar at the University of Delaware, and I currently work as an independent researcher.
Alongside research, I write academic texts, long-form reflective pieces, and books-in-progress - as a way of thinking in public and making sense of lived educational experience. In Writing my words seem closest to my feelings and thoughts, as I take time to reflect, form my own opinions, accept and integrate different perspectives, ask better questions, and stay accountable to complexity rather than easy answers.
I also facilitate learning events for adults - educators, youth workers, parents, school leaders, and edupreneurs, as well as International Volunteers (ESC & Erasmus+).
I am a certified facilitator of
I see training not as content delivery, but as relational work: spaces where adults can reflect, learn, and participate with intention and responsibility.
At the heart of everything I do is a simple commitment: to support the adults who walk alongside children and young people in their learning journeys, with care, kindness, consistency, respect, and accountability.
I am deeply interested in psychological safety and emotional security, and in building learning spaces where people can belong without having to perform or prove themselves.
I live and work between Romania and the United States, and I engage professionally in both Romanian and English.
I am also a mother, a wife, and a learner - roles that continue to shape how I understand education, research, and what it means to be with children in meaningful ways.
Over the past two decades, I have worked across research, building an educational model, teacher initial and continuing training, and community building, in Romania and internationally.
I am a co-founder of Green School and the founder of Fearless School - projects born from a long-standing commitment to education rooted in care, responsibility, and respect for both children’s autonomy and nature.
My work sits at the intersection of research and practice. I am particularly interested in Nature-Based Education, Self-Directed Education, Psychological Safety, Emotional Security and the role of adults in creating learning environments where children and young people can grow with dignity, trust - in which they feel belonging and happiness.
I have been a visiting researcher at the University of Vienna and a research scholar at the University of Delaware, and I currently work as an independent researcher.
Alongside research, I write academic texts, long-form reflective pieces, and books-in-progress - as a way of thinking in public and making sense of lived educational experience. In Writing my words seem closest to my feelings and thoughts, as I take time to reflect, form my own opinions, accept and integrate different perspectives, ask better questions, and stay accountable to complexity rather than easy answers.
I also facilitate learning events for adults - educators, youth workers, parents, school leaders, and edupreneurs, as well as International Volunteers (ESC & Erasmus+).
I am a certified facilitator of
- Circle of Security Parenting,
- Gottman Bring Baby Home, and
- The World Peace Game, and a trainer within the
- Erasmus+ and European Solidarity Corps Romanian network.
I see training not as content delivery, but as relational work: spaces where adults can reflect, learn, and participate with intention and responsibility.
At the heart of everything I do is a simple commitment: to support the adults who walk alongside children and young people in their learning journeys, with care, kindness, consistency, respect, and accountability.
I am deeply interested in psychological safety and emotional security, and in building learning spaces where people can belong without having to perform or prove themselves.
I live and work between Romania and the United States, and I engage professionally in both Romanian and English.
I am also a mother, a wife, and a learner - roles that continue to shape how I understand education, research, and what it means to be with children in meaningful ways.
|
ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-8164-4005
|
Certifications and accreditations
- Certified Circle Of Security Parenting Facilitator
- Certified Gottman Bring Baby Home Facilitator
- Certified The World Peace Game Facilitator
- Trainer Certified by the Romanian Ministry of Education
- Social-Educational Animator - Certified by the Romanian Ministry of Education
- Brevet d'animation socio-educative I
- Doctorate in Education Sciences - University of Bucharest, 2013