Hickman's research uses vaccinia and influenza virus models to investigate the immune response mechanisms involved with viral infections. She seeks to advance our understanding of antiviral immunity by employing intravital microscopy to study virus-host interactions in real time in vivo. In combination with ex vivo analyses, intravital microscopy has yielded a number of surprising findings involving the antiviral response, including novel aspects of CD8+ T-cell priming in the lymph node, as well as the segregation of antiviral immune effectors in virus-infected skin. 

Most recently, Hickman has been examining effector T cells in the skin to better understand the factors that mediate the location and killing of virus-infected targets. Further insight into T-cell migration and function within peripheral tissues could yield new methods to enhance T-cell-mediated clearance of both virus infection and tumors.

Hickman received her PhD from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, where she investigated the presentation of viral ligands by major histocompatibility class I molecules. In 2004, she joined the Laboratory of Viral Diseases and the NIAID, first as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Jonathan Yewdell, MD, PhD, and later as a senior associate scientist.