Speakers for the 2026 Fulbright Leaders for Global Schools Program

Since August 2024, I have been working as a principal in the Viikki training school of the University of Helsinki, my primary responsibility being that of high school principal’s duties.

I find that I am development-oriented principal in an otherwise traditional school environment, and my personality and enthusiasm fit the culture of a training school. Colleagues say that I make it visible how everyday successes are a part of larger entities and goals.

Before starting in Helsinki I worked as a regional principal in Porvoo, Finland. I acted as a supervisor for the principals and school secretaries in the Finnish-speaking secondary schools. Part of my job was also high school content development in cooperation with the director of education and the upper secondary school management team. The most important thing in my job as a regional principal was to bring a strategy level content for the principal's everyday life, strengthen the structures of cooperation and operational culture among principals and help principals in their everyday-life challenges. I have also worked as a principal for four years in a high school with 150 students. From my background I am a teacher of English and German languages, and I profiled very much as an advocate for international studies; I have lived and worked abroad on many occations. I graduated from the University of Jyväskylä in 2010.

Principal, CEO Ms Tiina Immonen has been in Mercuria Business College for over 30 years. She has worked as a vocational teacher, student counsellor, vice principal and since 2011 as Principal. Ms Immonen is an enthusiast of young people, and she has achieved creating a genuine working culture of care, appreciation and trust. She has been working actively to increase the appreciation for vocational education. Ms Immonen has been a trailblazer for the ideas of competence-based evaluation and that of personalisation. She was awarded as The Leader of Vocational Education of 2018.

PhD Kari Kivinen, the Education Outreach Expert of the EUIPOObservatory, leads the Intellectual Property in Education project and Network, which promotes creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship and responsible digital engagement among young Europeans. He has over 30 years of work experience in teaching and management of international and multicultural schools in Finland, Luxembourg, and Belgium.

In his free time, he has led the Finnish FaktabaariEDU (NGO) project, and he has e.g. edited the Digital Information Literacy Guide as part of EDMO Nordis project.

He was a member of the DG EAC expert group on Tackling disinformation and promoting digital literacy through education and training, which published their Final Report and Guidelines for teachers in October 2022. He has also collaborated with Joint Research Centre in developing new competences for DigComp 2.2.

Currently he combines his work in the EUIPO with lecturing on digital information literacy, Artificial Intelligence, Intellectual Property education, and curriculum development

Teijo Koljonen holds a Master of Science degree from the University of Helsinki. He has worked as a teacher, deputy-head and head of school. Currently he is working in the Finnish National Agency for Education as a Senior Adviser in Education with issues related to national curriculum development, teaching of STEM subjects, assessment criteria for learning outcomes and evaluation of grant applications.

The Finnish National Agency for Education is the national development agency responsible for early childhood education and care, pre-primary, primary and secondary education as well as for adult education and training.

Tapio Lahtero (Ph.D., Adjunct Professor) has been making his career both in the education departments of municipalities and at the universities. He graduated as a primary teacher at the University of Turku in 1993 and made his doctoral theses at the University of Jyväskylä in 2011 with the topic “Leadership culture at schools”. eMBA exam in Leadership in the public management he finished in 2015 at the University of Tampere. 

Tapio Lahtero has worked for over twenty years as a principal, as a regional principal and as the head of the comprehensive schools in the education department in City Vantaa. Since 2015 he is the Administrative Principal of both Teacher Training Schools of the University of Helsinki – Viikki Teacher Training School and Helsinki Normallyceum. 

Tapio Lahtero has been educating principals and leaders of education departments of municipalities at the Universities of Jyväskylä and Turku. Currently he works as the leader of the principal training program in the university of Helsinki. He has published several research articles about leadership culture, strategic leadership and pedagogical leadership.

Mr. Petri Lehikoinen was appointed Counsellor of Education and Head of Unit to the Finnish National Agency for Education in March 2018. He has been executive leader of the national core curriculum revision process of general upper secondary education since then. Before that he served over 20 years as headmaster at two Finnish general upper secondary schools – one of them also offering International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme education. During his leadership career he has worked as an educator of school leaders in 15 long lasting leader training programmes. He holds a Bachelor degree in History and Social Sciences (teacher specialization) from the University of Eastern Finland. He also holds two Specialist Vocational Qualifications: one in Product Development and another in Leadership.

Helena Mikkola (Ms.)  has 25 years of experience in International Affairs in education sector.  25 years ago she started as International Coordinator in Turku Vocational Institute. Since 2011 she has been in charge of International Affairs in Turku City’s Education Services. The Education Services of the City of Turku include early childhood education, basic education, upper secondary education, vocational education, and liberal adult education centers. Education services are offered in Turku in both Finnish and Swedish.

She holds Master’s Degree in Political Science (University of Turku) and also Pedagogical Qualification for Teaching. Helena Mikkola has completed a Specialized Vocational Qualification in Management.

In Education Services/City of Turku, Helena Mikkola is responsible for strategic development and operational planning in international cooperation. She leads the international and global education team. She is also involved in various projects. These projects are used for different types of project funding, such as the EU's Erasmus funding. Organizing and planning the program of various visits is part of her team's work.
 

Dr. Tuija Niemi has worked in the Teacher Training School of Turku since 2001. In 2019 she was elected to the position of a vice principal in basic education, and in 2002 she earned her PhD in Educational Sciences.

During the past four years she has concentrated on developing the school community and deepening her understanding of leadership issues. In addition to teacher training, her expertise lies especially in classroom teaching, foreign language learning and teaching and multicultural education. She has worked as a lecturer and educator in various occasions concerning language learning and teaching, bi- and multilingualism, content and language integrated learning and teaching (CLIL) and multilingual school and its pupils. She is responsible for the coordination of the content and language integrated learning (CLIL) program at the Teacher Training School as well as for the coordination of the teaching practices. She also has experience in different international projects, including transnational education projects, EC2U cooperation and Erasmus exchange students’ training in our school.

Ms. Katja Nieminen dedicated 20 years to the field of education before transitioned to international projects in Mercuria. Currently she works as international coordinator. Working in international context has been her dream ever since childhood and now she can combine her experience of working with young people as well as internationalization. She takes care of Mercuria’s various international projects and internships. International operations in Mercuria are active and versatile. Mercuria has earned international acclaim for its ambitious projects. Mercuria was awarded the European Innovative Teaching Award 2022, which is a recognition of the pedagogical work of teachers and their educational institutions in various European cooperation projects.

Vice principal Mr Markus Oedewald is currently in charge of developing pedagogy of young students in different learning environments (school, eKampus, work). His work consists mainly on management and leadership including strategy planning, pedagogical and curriculum management, supervising development managers and student counsellors, and co-operation with companies and other stake holders. As he has extensive experience and education in International Business Cultures and Tourism Business his area of responsibility includes many international and domestic projects.

Marika Ojala works in educational administation in the city of Seinäjoki, Finland. Her background is in class and English teaching, including bilingual education. She has coordinated EU-funded programs as a teacher, school leader and on administrative level. In 2011-2012 she worked in educational export program in United Arab Emirates. Currently she works in administration as head of basic education in Seinäjoki. The area of responsibility includes comprehensive, upper comprehensive and upper secondary schools. Additional tasks are support in learning and school attendance, projects, international cooperation and multicultural education in general education.

Kirsi is Principal at the Lahti Rudolf Steiner School (grades K-12). She is still in charge of developing and organizing annual Biology Camps for high school students at her school. Prior to becoming a Principal she worked an extended time as a biology, chemistry, and geography teacher in different schools and levels from secondary to university. Her Master of science degree focused on Cell and Molecular Biology. Besides her administrator and broad teaching experience at different schools, Kirsi has gained expertise through her work at the Science Center Heureka in Vantaa, Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley, California, and LUMA Centre in Lahti (promotes competence i.e. mathematics, science and technology), where she has been developing hands-on laboratory activities for visiting student groups. Kirsi has a long history of sharing her school, STEM education networks, events and practices with the U.S. Fulbright teachers, and she hosted the second Fulbright LGS cohort in her school, and introduced Multi-disciplinary Learning in Nature for Fulbright-Hays Seminar participants in Lapland during summer 2024.

Mikko Salo is Faktabaari (FactBar) co-founder, and member of the European Commission expert groups on online disinformation and medialiteracy. In 2014 Mikko founded the many times awarded (Bonnier, Chydenius, Europcom) fact-checking service, to bring accuracy to the election debates. Since then, he has worked at European level with media industry, (journalism) schools, media educators, scientists and voluntary crowds for pedagogical and engaging Faktabaari and NewsBeez digital media concepts. Currently he is engaged with Faktabaari team on new @FactBar EDU information literacy approach to build digital resilience: www.factbar.eu/edu