Viliina Silvonen is a folklorist specializing in Karelian lament tradition and its sprouts in Finland, interested in tradition in changing sociocultural contexts. In her article-based dissertation (2022) she applied performance, practice, and interdisciplinary affect/emotion theories with bodily methods to analyse the emotions and the affective power of Olonets Karelian on archival audio tapes. 

Silvonen works as a postdoctoral researcher at the Karelian Institute at the University of Eastern Finland in a project that studies lament tradition in contemporary Finland founded by Kone Foundation. She is also a member of the multidisciplinary research community of Finnish Literature Society.