Panchenko was born in Kyiv in 1936 in the family of officials. Upon graduating from the Kyiv Institute of Civil Engineering in 1960, she proceeded to work at the Ukrdiprobudmaterialy (Ukranian State Institute of Industrial Building Materials) in 1960-62, and subsequently at Dipromisto, Research Institute of Urban Planning, where she moved from a researcher to the head of the Department of Planning and Development of Resorts and Recreational Areas. Panchenko participated in the planning of over 50 resorts in Ukraine, including Alupka, Gurzuf, and Oreanda (all in Crimea), Karolino-Buhaz (Odesa region), and Khmilnyk (Vinnytsia region). 

In 1967, she defended doctoral dissertation devoted to the planning of balneological resorts in Ukraine; in 1986, she received her secondary doctorate degree for a dissertation on the complex design of resorts. She became a professor at Kyiv Institute of Engineering and Construction (currently Kyiv National University of Construction and Architecture), where she held the chair for Architectural Design of Settlements and Industrial Complexes and subsequently the chair of Landscape Architecture. Panchenko is the author of 140 publications, including 40 books. 

Between 1980 and 1990, she was a board member of the Union of Architects of Ukraine and the scientific secretary of the Architectural Section of the Society of Friendship and Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries.