Meet the Team

Liz Paushter is the Executive Director of the Badavas Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning, where she leads campus-wide efforts to advance teaching excellence, academic innovation, and student engagement. With over 20 years of experience in education, Liz brings a deep commitment to faculty development, interdisciplinary collaboration, and the transformative power of learning.

In her role, Liz serves as a strategic partner to faculty, academic leadership, and campus stakeholders—cultivating a culture of experimentation, community, and continuous improvement. She guides the Center’s work in pedagogical research and scholarship, faculty learning communities, instructional design, and emerging technologies, with a focus on equity, impact, and evidence-based practice.

Liz is also a thought leader in play-based learning, experiential education, and inclusive teaching, frequently presenting at national conferences and contributing to the broader field of academic innovation. Currently pursuing her Ed.D. in Transformational Education and Organizational Leadership at Northeastern University, she is especially interested in how universities can become more human-centered, future-focused, and responsive to the evolving needs of learners and educators alike.

MJ collaborates with faculty and other instructional designers on all aspects of instructional design and content development for asynchronous online programs as well as for traditional programs. She works directly with faculty to identify course learning outcomes and evaluates the most appropriate asynchronous or synchronous approaches and web-based tools to meet those objectives, and ensures the successful launch of all asynchronous courses developed. She also supports faculty in creating and managing their Faculty Profiles and Promotion & Tenures sites. MJ holds a Master of Education in Instructional Design from the University of Massachusetts Boston and a Bachelor of Arts from Case Western Reserve University. She has taught education courses on adult learning theory and curriculum development. MJ has been at Bentley since 2007 and was awarded the Bentley Founder's Day Award in 2023.

Elena Rinaldi joined Bentley University in fall 2024 as the Associate Director of Learning Design for Graduate Programs. With a rich background in learning design, she brings experience from various institutions and organizations. Before Bentley, Elena worked at Kineo, partnering with corporate clients to meet their learning and development needs. She also held positions at Harvard Business School, where she contributed to hybrid classroom design and collaborated closely with faculty, and at Boston Consulting Group, where she worked on internal learning projects.
Elena holds a master’s degree in Educational Technology Leadership from the Graduate School of Education and Human Development at George Washington University. At Bentley, she is particularly excited to collaborate across teams and to play a key role in designing the new Professional MBA program, with a passion for creating impactful blended learning experiences that truly benefit students.

Georgia has been leading at the intersection of pedagogical excellence and inclusion for nearly three decades. She has worked in education as an expert teacher, curriculum developer, pedagogical coach, accreditation associate, and strategic development director for a non-profit. Georgia has designed in-person, hybrid, and asynchronous courses. She has led large-scale workshops for academic leaders nationally and internationally on topics such as inclusive pedagogy, Universal Design for learning, Restorative Justice practices, and cognitive flexibility. Georgia graduated with an Ed.M. from Harvard Graduate School of Education in Educational Leadership with a particular focus on how diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice interact within the education sector. She also holds an Ed.M. from The College of New Rochelle in Curriculum and Design and a Bachelor of Science from Suffolk University in Clinical Psychology. 

Priya Sivakumar is the Senior Digital Learning Manager at Bentley University’s Badavas Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning, where she combines instructional design, educational technology, and learning science to build future-ready learning experiences. Since joining Bentley in 2024, she has worked closely with faculty and program teams to design and enhance online, hybrid, and executive education courses—with a consistent focus on accessibility, engagement, and real-world impact.

Her role spans hands-on course design, strategic program development, and experimentation with emerging tools, including AI. She helps build faculty workshops, creates resources, and supports pilots that push the boundaries of digital teaching while keeping inclusivity and accessibility at the forefront.

Before Bentley, Priya designed global learning experiences at Wharton Online Executive Education and developed high-engagement, personalized curricula at Teach For India. She holds a Master’s in Learning Sciences & Technologies from the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor’s in Informatics from Indiana University.

Gaby has been designing, developing, and evaluating instruction for the past three years as an Instructional Designer, and has ten years’ experience as a classroom teacher in both higher education and K-12. After completing her M.Ed. in Learning Design and Technology from Arizona State University in 2022, Gaby has created instructional materials on topics such as mentorship, immigration, health and safety, and other academic topics. She specializes in leveraging storytelling to engage learners in experiences that build abstract skills through simulations, and strives to empower faculty to use the tools at their disposal to help students engage with instructors and each other, regardless of physical distance.  

Previously, she earned a B.A. with a double major in Classics and French from John Carroll University, and an M.A. in Classics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  

Caroline first joined the Bentley Learning Design team as a part-time, temporary instructional designer in February 2024. However, both Bentley and Caroline loved the experience so much that they made the move to work full-time and long-term together in April 2025. 

Prior to working at Bentley, she worked in higher education and instructional design/technology for nearly a decade. This includes stints as a lecturer and adjunct professor in English and Film Studies. Caroline holds a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in English from Tufts University and a Master of Arts (MA) in Film Studies from the National University of Galway Ireland (now named University of Galway). 

As a learning designer, Caroline's ethos is all about radical empathy and kindness, and she is interested in all the ways to make learning equitable, inclusive, compassionate, and retainable. She loves small details, consistent and simple design, and the Oxford comma. 

In her free time, Caroline can usually be found on her very comfy couch watching a movie or reading a book with her rescue dog, Róisín.