Dr Katya Pechenkina

Biography

Dr. Pechenkina is a cultural anthropologist, scholar of teaching and learning, and award-winning lecturer. Her PhD (The University of Melbourne, 2014) investigated the notions of academic success among Indigenous Australian students. In addition to Indigenous education and critical race theory, her current research interests include scholarship of teaching and learning, educational technology, and the socio-cultural aspects of technological innovation. Dr. Pechenkina is responsible for a range of strategic teaching and learning initiatives in the areas of educational innovation, scholarship of teaching and learning, impact and evaluation of teaching, as well as online learning and professional development for academic teaching staff. Her methodological expertise comprises qualitative and quantitative as well as mixed approaches; she is particularly skilled in ethnographic methods of inquiry.

Dr. Pechenkina’s teaching and convenorship encompasses various units focused on scholarly teaching, project-based learning, evaluation of teaching’s impact, online learning and communication, and inclusive learning and teaching practices. She is an Associate Editor with The Electronic Journal of e-Learning (EJEL) and an International Advisory Board member with the Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education (ETHE). She regularly serves as an assessor for Australian Awards for University Teaching and has won two Vice-Chancellor’s Teaching Excellence Awards (2019, 2021) as part of teams, as well as the 2021 Vice-Chancellor’s Reconciliation Award (Team). In 2020, she was Highly Commended for the Vice-Chancellor’s Service Excellence Award (Team), while in 2022 she was a member of the collaborative team that won an Adobe Innovation Grant for the project “Engaging diverse cohorts in video-based hyflex active learning”.

As an HDR supervisor, Dr. Pechenkina is interested in interdisciplinary projects that bring together the Scholarship of Teaching Learning, technological innovation research and creative research approaches.