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Daniel Hickey has received a to study and teach at the University of Tartu in Estonia from November 2026 through July 2027.

“The Fulbright is an extraordinary opportunity to bring together several strands of my career—learning sciences, assessment, cybersecurity and, more recently, generative AI. I’m especially excited to work in Estonia, which has emerged as a global leader in digital education, and to build collaborations that I hope will continue beyond the Fulbright year,” he said.

Hickey is a Professor of learning sciences. In addition to teaching a graduate course and offering workshops and seminars on cybersecurity for future educators, he will support and study two nationwide, EU-funded projects during his Fulbright.

One project involves the new initiative, which aims to reimagine education in the age of AI, raise AI literacy across society, and advance education through research-based development. It is inspired by Estonia’s groundbreaking Tiger Leap initiative, which was launched in the 1990s as part of the country’s post-Soviet effort to rapidly expand internet access and digital education in schools and increase digital literacy.

Hickey will also work with Estonia’s to explore how AI literacy and online safety education can complement one another as schools respond to emerging technologies and prepare students to navigate an increasingly AI-enabled world.

“Estonia offers a remarkable real-world setting for studying two urgent questions in education: how we can use generative AI effectively and how we can better prepare learners for cybersecurity,” Hickey said. “I’ll be studying Estonia’s ambitious AI Leap and Safer Internet initiatives while also teaching courses in these areas. That combination will let the research inform my teaching—and the teaching informs the research.”

“I hope to come home with new ideas, new research and, most importantly, lasting collaborations. Estonia is doing innovative work at a national scale, so I expect to learn a great deal from Estonian educators, students and researchers. I also hope to contribute approaches from my work at IU and develop ideas that can benefit education in both countries,” he added.