University teacher Sanna Ilonen holds a D.Sc. (Bus & Econ) degree from the University of Turku. Sanna works as a responsible teacher in Entrepreneurship and as a head of academic program of International Management and Entrepreneurship.  Sanna’s research interests comprise of entrepreneurship education in higher education, especially from the point of view of entrepreneurial learning, and well-being and ill-being of entrepreneurs. Sanna has participated several projects as well as been involved in tendering procedures. In addition, she is a passionate teacher and has constantly developed her teaching skills through pedagogical studies. She completed her pedagogical training (60 ECTs) in June 2018. Sanna has also participated in educational development activities at faculty, programme and unit levels. 

Sanna has published her research in international and national journals (International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour & Research, Industry & Higher education, Hallinnon tutkimus) and presented her research work in several international and national conferences. She has also served as a reviewer and session chair in multiple conferences. Sanna has been an advisory board member of the ERD (European Regional Development fund) funded HAPI project that focused on enhancing service innovation activities of SMEs in the health care sector.

Sanna’s research interests focus on entrepreneurship education in higher education. Topic of her dissertation (defended 2020) was "Entrepreneurial learning in entrepreneurship education in higher education" and it investigated whether and how entrepreneurial learning develops in entrepreneurship education in universities. In her post-doctoral research she continues to work around entrepreneurship education in higher education (also focus on critical entrepreneurship education, intrapreneurship and practitioner integration) and is also interested in wellbeing and illbeing in entrepreneurship.

Sanna serves an editor for Edward Elgar Publishing (A Research Agenda for Intrapreneurship), a guest editor for Journal of Professional and Vocational Education (Kriittisiä ja refleksiivisiä näkökulmia yrittäjyyskasvatukseen), serves in an editorial board for Edward Elgar book Encyclopedia of Entrepreneurship Education. Sanna has served as a conference chair for the National Entrepreneurship Education Conference 2023 and served as a session chair in several conferences.

Sanna has presented her research work in several international conferences and published her articles in respected journals such as International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour & Research and Industry & Higher Education and Hallinnon Tutkimus. She has also served as a reviewer in multiple journals (International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour & Research, Industry & Higher Education, Education + Training, Entrepreneurship Education & Pedagogy), and multiple conferences (RENT, ICSB, YKTT, WORK, 3E, NSBC). 

Sanna is a passionate teacher and has constantly developed her teaching skills through pedagogical studies. She completed her university pedagogical training (60 ECTs) in 2018 with excellent overall evaluation and achieved an educational and teaching qualification (pedagoginen pätevyys in Finnish). Sanna is a head of academic program of International Management and Entrepreneurship and a member of Teaching skills Committee of Turku School of Economics (evaluations of teaching skills for vacant positions). She is an active member of TSE's teachers' club. Sanna supervises theses groups and serves as a teacher in several courses. Sanna also serves as a my-teacher (teacher tutor).