Dr. Miroslav Macko

Research

Biography:

Miroslav Macko is an expert in simulations and data analysis for ultra-rare event searches. He received his master degree in 2015 under the supervision of Prof. Fedor Šimkovic, focusing on nuclear theory and QRPA model calculations — a key tool for evaluating nuclear matrix elements in neutrinoless double beta decay (0νββ). In 2015, he began his Ph.D. and joined the SuperNEMO Collaboration (supernemo.org), which built a unique detector for 0νββ searches equipped with a tracking system. In 2018, he earned a double Ph.D. from Université de Bordeaux (France) and Comenius University in Bratislava (Slovakia), supervised by Prof. Fabrice Piquemal and Assoc. Prof. Ivan Štekl. His doctoral work combined simulation and experimental studies, including neutron background simulations, sensitivity estimates for 0νββ with Majoron emission, precision activity measurements, and energy calibration mapping using Bi-207 sources. Through these tasks, he gained extensive experience with plastic scintillators, multiwire drift chambers, pixel detectors (Timepix), ultra-low background techniques, and energy calibration.

In 2019, he joined the TRITIUM project at LP2i Bordeaux, focused on real-time tritium monitoring in water, and later that year moved to Prague as a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Experimental and Applied Physics, Czech Technical University. There, he rejoined SuperNEMO and built a team developing track reconstruction algorithms, energy calibration tools, and sensitivity studies for both two-neutrino (2νββ) and neutrinoless (0νββ) double beta decay. Since 2023, he has served as Deputy Physics Coordinator of the SuperNEMO experiment. Up to 2025, he has supervised four bachelor theses, four master theses, 17 internships, and co-supervised one Ph.D. thesis, mentoring students from universities in Slovakia, Czechia, Ukraine, and the United States.

Currently, he collaborates with Prof. Masayuki Wada on DarkSide, a project dedicated to dark matter searches.

Awards:

2021: Winner of the Slovak round of French science popularization competition “Ma thèse en 180 secondes 2021”
2019: Dean´s Award (FMPHI, Comenius University in Bratislava) for the best dissertation thesis 2018/2019 (category: physics)
2017: Dean´s Award (FMPHI, Comenius University in Bratislava) for the best work of Student Conference 2017 (category: physics, Ph.D. students)

Other interests:

Science popularization: Miroslav Macko took part in the central European round of French science popularization competition “Ma thèse en 180 secondes 2021” (LINK)
and in 2024 he also participated in internal SuperNEMO collaboration video making contest (LINK).

Positions:

2025-now: postdoc at Astrocent, NCAC PAS (Poland)
2019-2025: postdoc at IEAP CTU in Prague (Czech republic)
in 2019: postdoc at LP2i Bordeaux (France)

Degrees and titles