Slava Yurchenkov

Slava leads the Instructional Design team at UMass Amherst, overseeing instructional design consultations for UMass instructors and TAs, the EdTech IDEAS Digest research project, the IDEAS Seminars on instructional design and learning technologies, and interactive workshops on Accessibility and Design for Learning in Canvas.

Prior to joining UMass Amherst, Slava served as Manager of Instructional Design and Instructional Technology at SberUniversity (formerly Sberbank Corporate University) in Russia from 2018 to 2024. He directed large cross-functional teams and built one of the country’s largest EdTech communities for educators, growing it to more than 47,000 members.

His portfolio includes several award-winning initiatives, such as the flagship More Than Just Learning conference, which reached 4 million online viewers and more than 13,000 in-person participants. He curated the EduTech Digest, organized over 30 EduTech seminars, and served as Chief Editor of EduTech Magazine, a leading publication on learning technologies and instructional design. His work on social learning ecosystems, including a platform supporting 40,000+ users and more than 2,000 user-generated content items, helped earn SberUniversity the ATD BEST Award in 2019.

Slava holds an M.Ed. in Learning, Media & Technology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, as well as Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in English and History Education from Ryazan State University in Russia.