Doc. PhDr. Michal Vašečka, PhD. is sociologist by background. He focuses his interests on issues of ethnicity, race, and migration studies, as well as populism, extremism, social movements, and civil society.

As an Associate Professor Michal operates at the Bratislava International School of Liberal Arts (BISLA) since 2015 and at the Pan-European University in Bratislava since 2018. Previously he worked at the Faculty of Social Studies of Masaryk University in Brno (2002-2017) and at the Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences of Comenius University in Bratislava (2006-2009). As a visiting scholar he operated at the New School University in New York (1996-1997), at the University of London (1998), at the Georgetown University In Washington DC (2008-2009), at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor (2015), and he was also a ISGAP Scholar-In-Residence at the Oxford University (2016).

Michal Vašečka is a founder and former director (2006-2012) of the Center for the Research of Ethnicity and Culture (CVEK). In 1998-2005 he worked at the Slovak think-tank Institute of Public Affairs (IVO) as a program director on expert analysis of the Slovak transformation process with a focus on national minorities and the state of civil society in Slovakia. He has been a consultant for the World Bank in 2000-2008 and in 2011-2012.

Since 2012 Michal Vašečka serves as a representative of the Slovak republic in the European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), human rights body of the Council of Europe. He serves as a vice-chairman of the governmental committee VRAX tackling extremism and racism in Slovakia since 2017. In 2010-2017 Michal Vašečka served as a chairman of the Board of the Fulbright Commission in Slovakia. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the European Centre for Minority Issues in Flensburg since 2010, and president of the Executive Board of the Platform for Improvement of Health Status of Disadvantaged Groups in Bratislava since 2017. Dr. Michal Vašečka is a chairman of the Editorial Board of the Denník N, major daily newspaper in Slovakia since 2016, and a member of the Advisory Board of the Prague-based Aspen Review Central Europe in 2012-2016, since 2016 member of the Editorial Board.

In 2018 Michal became a laureate of the Award for special contribution in the field human rights of Minister of Justice of Slovakia.

He joined IZA as a Research Fellow in June 2007.