Dr. Paula Schönach acts as senior advisor in sustainability at Aalto University School of Business, being responsible for enhancing sustainability, especially in education. She is the coordinating lead of the activities of the School of Business in the PRME (Principles of Responsible Management Education) network. Additionally, she is programme director of the CLIMATE-programme of Strategic research (SRC) in Finland (40 % time allocation).

Her scholarly background is in environmental social sciences, with a PhD in 2008 in environmental policy. Her research interests focus on sustainability in higher education, the history of sustainability and more in general, Finnish environmental history. She has published widely on northern environmental history on e.g. water governance and infrastructures; watershed management and the history of water pollution and protection. She has been a visiting scholar at the University of British Columbia, and University of Alberta in 2016 and 2018, respectively. She was the Regional Representative of the Nordic Countries in the European Society for Environmental History (2017-2021). She has been appointed to the editorial board of the new journal Lähihistoria from 2022 onwards.