About The Brain Train Learning Center
The Brain Train Learning Center has grown organically through the combination of a true ability to see how a child’s brain works coupled with a constant thirst for knowledge and better understanding of what is out there and known about the world of cognition. We bring people together who are fascinated by the process of information getting into someone’s brain. While schools are focused on WHAT information is being presented to children, we are focused on HOW those children are able to get that information from the teacher, the book, or any other medium, into the long term, short term and working memories in their brain. How they can then analyze it and come up with their own thoughts and ideas about that information and successfully express those ideas. Those critical thinking skills are very difficult to develop for someone for whom getting the information in and out is still difficult.
Martha Ucko
M Ed, L&L
Executive Director
Martha is the Executive Director of the Brain Train Learning Center after having been raised immersed in the business since she was 8 years old. With a minor in Education at Dartmouth College (B.S. in German Studies) and a Masters in Literacy and Language Acquisition from Harvard she spent most of her formative years learning, absorbing, and even sometimes assisting with many of the 45 years of experience that make this place what it is (i.e. with her mother). Right out of college, she taught first grade at a Charter School in the South Bronx and decided she had to go back for her Masters degree to expand her ability to truly help every child out there learn how their brains work. To help them learn how they learn how to read and think and how best to get themselves there.
Upon graduation, she was lured to the world of finance and went to work at CreditSights as a financial analyst. While this took her away from working with children, she honed her analytical skills on analyzing companies for a while and also learned a lot about business and product strategy. She also stayed in touch with the Brain Train checking in regularly and even tutoring hours on the weekend or over the phone to help a kid with math from the office. She was never too far away. Upon her return, Martha knew it was time for her true passion to take hold and she was now ready to return home to start the rest of her life.
Martha has lofty goals around changing our education system and informing the world about how children learn and process the world.
In her downtime, Martha enjoys staying active with Paddle Tennis and cycling, and hiking with the crucial Brain Train mascots, Windermere (Windy) and Lexington (Lexie).
Bernadette K. Ucko
MA, LDTC
Founder and Clinical Director
Bernadette (Bunny) Ucko is the clinical director and owner of The Brain Train Learning Center. She started her career as a teacher after graduating from Wheelock College in 1974. While she was teaching kindergarten in New York City, she realized that she could help individual children by training their processing skills and not just by teaching them how to read. This realization led her to further study at Bank Street College and Columbia University. In 1984, she then went on to graduate with a master’s degree in special education—with certification in learning disabilities—from Seton Hall University.
Since she was in high school, Bunny has always had at least one student that she was tutoring. Her passion for tutoring led her to train other individuals who wanted to help students improve their processing and learning skills. Since 1995, Bunny has been helping students in her learning center, along with the clinicians whom she has trained. Her learning center was located in her home until 2017 when the demand for her training program dictated the need for more space.
Bunny is continuously searching for and researching new ways to help individuals with all kinds of challenges. iLs, ILp, SSP, PACE, Retrain The Brain, Learning Breakthrough, The Listening Program, and Interactive Metronome are just a few of the myriad utilized and customized programs in her practice. Bunny has been trained in the methodology of Lindamood-Bell – including LiPS, Seeing Stars, Visualizing and Verbalizing and On Cloud Nine Math. She also has training in PAF and Wilson. Her most valuable tool is the 40-plus years of experience working one-on-one with every imaginable kind of learner. She has researched the study of the brain, its functions and neuro-plasticity, and has a good grasp of how to help individuals change their brains for improved learning and life skills. Many students with reading and math disabilities, as well as auditory and visual processing disorders, autonomic disregulation and sensory processing disorders, find her practice because they have tried several other programs and nothing has worked to their satisfaction.
In her down time, Bunny enjoys spending time with her close-knit extended family—especially her five grandchildren.
Lloyd Ucko (Pops)
Processing Skills Trainer and Business Adviser
Pops has been immersed in the Brain Train since day one. Between coming home from work and sharing his kitchen counter with parents and students to regular dinner conversations with his wife and daughter brain storming endlessly about the trickier brains and how to unlock the potential and celebrating the wins when a student truly achieves that A they thought was unattainable.
Lloyd graduated from Dartmouth College in 1972 and Completed the Tuck Business School MBA Program directly thereafter (Class of 1974). That was when he found his own passion for helping others find their highest potential when he was coaching the freshman squash and tennis team. During his business career starting at General Foods and then on to a finance career (e.g. Goldman Sachs, Advest, CSFB and CreditSights) he never lost that passion for helping children find that balance and strength by coaching. Upon his retirement, Lloyd expanded his role from Business Advisor at the Brain Train Learning Center to begin training in the processing skills programming in order to return to his passion of empowering children to be their best selves.
In his personal time, Pops likes to hang out with his family, play golf, tennis, paddle tennis, and travel.
Empowering Learners & Transforming Lives
We bring together people from a variety of backgrounds with a common goal of empowering children to process the world around them and express their beautiful minds clearly and confidently. Just as we individualize each program for each child we also very carefully individualize the team they are working with to provide the ideal combination of empathy, faith, encouragement, competition and coaching for each individual child.
Alicia Rodriguez
Math Specialist
Alicia came to the Brain Train Learning Center as a math teacher who just gets it. She was at the Summit Public Schools and is now a leader building extensive programming and supporting her students learning at Kent Place School. She comes and helps our students find the right way to make sense of math after school.
Amber Crawford
Processing Skills Trainer
Amber is a Processing Skills Trainer working one-on-one with students in the Home School and After School programs. She helps students improve their processing and learning skills. With 20+ years experience in Early Childhood and Special Education, Amber empowers students to reach their full potential, build confidence, and support them to wherever their journey takes them. She is skilled in helping children find their intellectual safe space and takes pride in what she has learned from children – patience, accountability, and consistency.
Kelsey Clark
Processing Skills Trainer
Kelsey Clark is a full-time Home School and After School clinician at the Brain Train Learning Center. She works with students one- on-one and plays a key role in creating customized schedules and managing the flexibility of the organized part of organized chaos. She stepped right in able to pull each student at the right time to give them exactly what they need. Kelsey graduated from Gettysburg College with a degree in Psychology and a minor in Studio Art.
Upon graduation, she worked in the school system as a para-professional and joined our team in 2023. However, her training started much earlier as Kelsey always gravitated towards scenarios where she could help the people she cared about to thrive through her friends and neighbors growing up. Kelsey never shies away from helping someone she can help and I don’t see that stopping anytime soon!
Natalie Dougherty
Processing Skills Trainer
Natalie has shifted her focus to the After School Program at the Brain Train Learning center as she uses some of what she learned here and in other walks of life to help students with executive functioning at the Red Oaks School during the school day. Natalie uses her background building her own executive functioning skills in a variety of high powered corporate and legal environments along with her focus on supporting that development with her boys.
Furthermore, Natalie has always been thirsty for more knowledge and understanding of how the brain works and how best to support children’s learning through her time as a nursery school teacher as she has been soaking up her extensive training in topics such as reading, handwriting, executive functioning, critical thinking, language processing and much more! We are excited to see what she does over there and to have her continue to support our students after school.
Amy Cool
Processing Skills Trainer
Amy comes to the Brain Train with extensive experience in both the classroom environment as well as on a more individual basis in a hospital setting helping kids stay on top of their work after being hospitalized. She brings an enthusiasm and warmth that exudes joy and engages with the kids in a beautiful balance of confidence boosting with a taste of a competitive edge. With extensive training at the Brain Train, Amy not only can support their learning but can truly help children train their processing skills.
Kristin Douglas
Processing Skills Trainer
Kristin comes to us with a unique background and a true joy for learning. Kristin is a scientist and an educator at heart with an extensive background in science that led her to the Natural History Museum in New York most recently. She has now been training extensively on the Brain Training programming, but has combined her love for children and helping them find the joy in learning that she exudes every day. It is so fun to watch her light up at the sight of a science or social studies study guide and just want to dig in on all the information. She has been a major contributor already to both the Home School and the After School groups and we look forward to seeing all that she will do here in the coming years!