Saara Penttinen is a Doctoral Researcher at the University of Turku’s Department of European and World History. Her current research examines how world experiences were shared virtually in mid-seventeenth-century English public curiosity collections. Penttinen is particularly interested in the intersections of knowledge, mobility, and material culture in the early modern period, with a focus on geographical imaginations and the histories of virtuality and virtual travel.

Beyond her research, Penttinen actively promotes the study of early modern and premodern periods. She is a founding member of the Network for Early Modern Research in Finland and currently serves on its board. She has been a part of the History of Science, Knowledge, and Technology Research Group Tiedepiiri in Turku since 2013, and a member of Tucemems (Turku Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies) since 2015.

In 2019, Penttinen was a visiting postgraduate research student at the University of Cambridge’s Department of History and Philosophy of Science and at the USTC project at the University of St. Andrews. She also served as a visiting associate research student in the Department of English at Queen Mary University of London in 2020.

Penttinen's PhD research focuses on the ways in which mid-seventeenth-century English public collections enabled people from different backgrounds to experience the world virtually by embodying European geographical imaginations and imageries. She is particularly interested in the intersections of knowledge, travel, and material culture in the early modern period, with a focus on geographical imageries and the histories of virtuality and virtual travel.

In 2021–2022 Penttinen teaches a lecture course on Early modern global representations.

In 2020–2021 Penttinen taught a tutorial for Master's students and a lecture course on Early modern global representations.