Ilmonen has over a decade of teaching experience from various universities. She teaches several Bachelor’s and Master’s level courses at Aalto University, and she is the responsible teacher of a minor in Statistics. She is known for her ability to discuss complicated matters in an understandable way. Pauliina Ilmonen is the chair of the Finnish Statistical Society, and she belongs to the European Regional Committee of Bernoulli Society. She loves statistics and she participates actively in public discussions related to statistics. 

In her research work, Pauliina Ilmonen focuses on topics in the field of mathematical statistics. Her research group’s most significant research topics are multivariate extreme value theory, invariant coordinate selection (ICS), independent component analysis (ICA), functional data analysis (FDA), change point analysis, and analysis stationary processes. Also pure mathematics is close to Pauliina’s heart. Her research group’s interest there lies on characteristics of meet and join (hyper)matrices. In addition to deriving theoretical results, her group is working on applied topics related to cancer epidemiology and the epidemiology of viruses. Doing applied work enables to contribute to research that may have significant public health implications.