CENTRE FOR TEACHING
EXCELLENCE & INNOVATION

Team Members

Meet the CTEI Team! We are composed of our Senior Educational Developers, our Educational Technologists, our CTEI Coordinator, and our Director.

For general inquiries, e-mail us at [email protected]

Jenny Ge

Senior Educational Developer, Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Alisa Cunnington

Senior Educational Developer, Digital Pedagogies and Innovation

Matthew Dunleavy

Senior Educational Developer, Faculty Excellence and Development

Yirong Wang

Educational Technologist

Tony Payment

Educational Technologist

Iona McMahon

CTEI Coordinator

Tommy Mayberry

Founding Director
Jenny Ge with her dog River. Jenny is wearing black pants, a white top, and silver horn-rimmed glasses, and River has white fur with light-brown and grey patches and his tongue sticking out
Jenny Ge

Senior Educational Developer, Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

[email protected]

Jenny Ge (she/her) is an educational developer with a robust background in the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL), learning assessment, anti-racist pedagogies, and program evaluation. She completed her BEd and PhD in Education at Queen’s University and holds a Credentialed Evaluator designation from the Canadian Evaluation Society. Her research explores teacher identity development across diverse contexts through narrative and arts-based methods. She occasionally teaches in the University of Toronto’s Master of Teaching program. Outside of work, she loves spending time with her two dogs, River and Sunday. (River pictured here.)

Alisa Cunnington in front of a mossy rock wall wearing a black and white leaf-printed long-sleeved top with a black shirt underneath, silver hoop earrings, and smiling into the camera.]
Alisa Cunnington

Senior Educational Developer, Digital Pedagogies and Innovation

[email protected]

Alisa Cunnington (she/her) is an educational developer and scholarly teacher with 6+ years in increasingly senior roles with educational technologies and over 25 years’ post-secondary education teaching experience in colleges and universities as well as with museums and art galleries. She immediately is joining our CTEI from Brock University’s Centre for Pedagogical Innovation where she was the Senior Educational Developer, Technology Enabled Learning, and she is looking forward to connecting with YU + TFS faculty and instructors about their relationships with technology and its integration and entanglement with their pedagogies. (Alisa welcomes conversations, too, about her artistic practice; her research and teaching about storytelling, museum studies, or studies in arts and culture; her love of hiking and exploration of the world near and far; and her deep commitment to situating herself as a settler in a colonized nation and to all things anti-oppressive.)  

Matthew Dunleavy wearing a pink and purple polka-dot shirt under a grey blazer with red-framed glasses and a long reddish-brown beard smiling into the camera
Matthew Dunleavy

Senior Educational Developer, Faculty Excellence and Development

[email protected] 

Matthew Dunleavy (he/him) is an educational developer and scholarly teacher with over 10+ years’ experience. In addition to working at the CTEI, Matthew serves as the Vice-Chair of the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (STLHE). Before joining the CTEI, Matthew was an Educational Developer in the Teaching Commons at York University; before entering that role, he served as the Program Director of the Online Learning and Technology Consultants (OLTC) Program at the Maple League of Universities (Acadia University; Bishop’s University; Mount Allison University; and St. Francis Xavier University). In 2022, he was awarded the D2L Innovation Award in Teaching and Learning by STLHE for this work.

Yirong Wang

Educational Technologist

[email protected]

Yirong Wang (she/her) holds a Master of Arts (MA) in Educational Technology as well as a Master of Education (MEd) in Adult Education. Yirong brings a diverse academic background to her role as Educational Technologist at Yorkville University and Toronto Film School. Providing expert guidance on technology selection and incorporation, Yirong is committed to enhancing technology-enabled teaching practices for diversity, inclusivity, and accessibility. Yirong is also responsible for planning, developing, and delivering targeted faculty development programs on pedagogical strategies with approved educational technologies. Driven by a passion for advancing educational technologies and digital pedagogical innovation, Yirong engages with emerging tech trends and conducts institution-level research to facilitate transformative teaching and learning experiences for achieving our signature learning outcomes.

Tony has long blonde hair over their shoulders and is wearing a black turtlenecked t-shirt with a thin gold chain necklace.
Tony Payment

Educational Technologist

[email protected]

Tony Payment (they/them) is a graduate of Brock University’s Game Design MA, whose research focuses on the linking of scholarship to design and development. As a games scholar with experience in employee training and a passion for teaching and learning, they bring a unique perspective to faculty development and the development of educational resources. Tony is always excited about finding innovative ways to use technology in the classroom, connecting with students and educators, and the importance of play.

Iona McMahon

CTEI Coordinator

[email protected]

Iona McMahon (she/her) is an educational coordinator with over five years of experience supporting academic programming. Her work is guided by a passion for accessibility and a commitment to nurturing belonging in higher education. As a CODA (Child of Deaf Adults), Iona’s first language is American Sign Language (ASL), and her connection to Deaf community and culture informs her approach to building and facilitating spaces for engaged and inclusive learning. Iona holds an MA in English Language and Literature from Queen’s University, where she specialized in Disability Studies and researched storytelling techniques within the ASL-using Deaf community. Her first publication, “The Duality of the Deaf Vampire in Peter Wolf’s Deafula (1975)” appears in the book Disability, Illness, and the Vampire in Literature and Culture (Routledge, 2025, eds. Drumlin N.M. Crape and Brooke Cameron).

Tommy Mayberry

Director

[email protected] 

Tommy Mayberry (he/she/they) is the founding Director of our inaugural Centre for Teaching Excellence and Innovation here at Yorkville University and Toronto Film School. As an academic drag queen, they have published their work in numerous journals and edited volumes and have performed and presented their scholarship and research findings nationally as well as internationally. Tommy is co-editor (with Lindsay Bryde) of the award-winning book, RuPedagogies of Realness: Essays on Teaching and Learning with RuPaul’s Drag Race (McFarland 2022) – and currently have an equity and justice focused follow-up “shequel” edition in the works, too! – and Tommy is also a recipient of the University of Waterloo’s Award for Exceptional Teaching (2015) as well as of the 2024 CCCC Lavender Rhetorics Award for Excellence in Queer Scholarship. They hold a PhD in English as well as an MA in English and Cultural Studies.