Mirko is Associate Professor of AI, Data & Society at the Department for Information and Computing Sciences where he leads the master program Applied Data Science. He is the Sciences Lead of the Data School, an interdisciplinary research and education platform. Mirko also serves on the Advisory Committee Analytics at the Netherlands Ministry of Finance.

His research interest revolves around the socio- political impact of big data and AI. Together with the Data School, he investigates AI and data practices in government organisations and develops processes and practices for responsible use and implementation, and public accountability. Mirko has an extensive track-record in developing collaborative research projects with extra-university partners and facilitating effective mutual knowledge transfer and societal impact.

His book Bastard Culture! How User participation Transforms Cultural Production (Amsterdam University Press 2011) was listed as best-seller in the section computer science by The Library Journal. Together with Karin van Es, he edited the volume The Datafied Society. Studying Culture through Data (Amsterdam University Press 2017). His most recent publication (together with Karin van Es & Tracey Lauriault) is the edited volume Collaborative Research in the Datafied Society Methods and Practices for Investigation and Intervention (Amsterdam University Press 2024).

From 2012 to 2013 he was a research fellow at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. In 2014 he was appointed post-doctoral research fellow at the Centre for Humanities at Utrecht University. In 2016 Mirko was a Mercator Research Fellow at the NRW School of Governance at University of Duisburg-Essen. Between 2022 and 2025, Mirko was a Visiting Professor at the Helsinki Institute for Social Sciences & Humanities of the University of Helsinki.