Hartikainen is a PhD Candidate in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Helsinki. Her dissertation research focuses on celebrity populism and how it operates in the hybrid media system, based on the case study of the Czech Republic. She also has a background in history and Central and East European area studies, and she is particularly interested in the political use of history, memory, and contested historical spaces, and how all of this shows up on social media. She was selected to be part of the 2020-21 Europaeum Scholars Programme, which she will complete alongside her PhD.

Hartikainen previously worked as a journalist, focusing mainly on American politics. She has also worked in the Department of Education at the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes in Prague since 2014, where she co-created the educational website Socialism Realised: Life in Communist Czechoslovakia, 1948-89. In addition to carrying out her research, Hartikainen also teaches courses on populism in Central and East Europe and has guest lectured on various topics related to populism in the media.

Kone Foundation grant recipient, Now-Time, Us-Space project: May 2020 - August 2021

EDUFI Fellowship: August 2019 - April 2020

Lecturer, Department of Education, Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes: December 2014 - present

News & Politics Writer, Bustle Digital Media: September 2016 - June 2019

Erasmus Mundus Scholarship Recipient for the International Masters in Russian, Central, and East European Studies at University of Glasgow and Corvinus University of Budapest, 2012 - 2014

Fulbright English Teaching Assistant, Liberec, Czech Republic, September 2011 - June 2012