In a recent interview with SHSAA, Stanislav (Stan) Nikolov ’07 reflected on his journey from a student at Stuyvesant High School to a member of the team behind the Nobel Prize-winning discovery of AlphaFold.

Born in Bulgaria in 1989, Stan grew up in the historic town of Hisar before his family moved to New York City when he was eight years old. Alongside his older brother Petko ’05, he attended Stuyvesant High School, where he found himself immersed in an intellectually stimulating environment that fueled his curiosity for computing and the natural world. “Stuyvesant was an incredible environment,” he recalled. “It encouraged me to explore a wide range of interests and exposed me to different disciplines, from mathematics to physics to computer science.”

This broad exposure laid the groundwork for his future academic pursuits, as he went on to study electrical engineering, computer science, and mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Along the way, he explored computational cognitive science, biophysics, brain-inspired machine learning, robotics, and software engineering, diving into various disciplines between semesters.

While his academic trajectory seemed rooted in the hard sciences, Stan’s journey took an intriguing detour into the world of consciousness and neuroscience during his time at MIT. “I took a philosophy of mind course that opened my eyes to cognitive science and computational neuroscience,” he shared. “I became fascinated by how the brain processes information and how we can simulate these processes using computers.” This fascination led him to intern at the Consciousness and Computation Lab at Columbia University, where he worked on theoretical analyses of how the brain might detect and process signals. He later spent time at Saarland University in Germany, where he studied neurons at a microscopic level, simulating the behavior of microtubules in the brain.

This exploration of brain science and its connection to computation formed the foundation for Stan’s later work in artificial intelligence. “The brain was my inspiration for everything I did,” he said. “I wanted to understand how intelligence emerges, whether it’s biological or artificial.”

In 2016, Stan joined DeepMind as a Research Engineer, where he initially worked on developing computer vision systems for medical diagnosis and treatment. However, his most groundbreaking contributions came when he joined the AlphaFold2 team, the project that would ultimately win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2022. Protein folding—the process by which proteins assume their functional shapes—had remained one of the greatest unsolved challenges in biology for decades. Accurate prediction of protein structures could revolutionize drug discovery, disease research, and bioengineering. Researchers had been working on the problem for years, but it wasn’t until the development of AlphaFold that a true breakthrough occurred.

“When I joined the team, AlphaFold had just completed its first version, and we knew it had potential, but it wasn’t quite there yet,” Stan said. “The accuracy was still below what we needed for it to be truly useful.”

However, through relentless work and collaboration, the team at DeepMind pushed AlphaFold to new heights. “It was an exciting, intense time,” Stan recalled. “We were a small team, but we were all incredibly driven, and we were surrounded by brilliant minds. It was a real team effort.”

In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the AlphaFold team achieved a groundbreaking milestone: they demonstrated that the system could predict protein structures with experimental-level accuracy, solving a problem that had stumped scientists for decades. “When we got the news, it was a surreal moment,” Stan said. “We had done it. The problem of protein folding was essentially solved.”

This achievement, which has since revolutionized the field of biology and drug discovery, earned the team the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2022.

For the last three years, Stan has been working on applying artificial intelligence to mathematics, continuing his journey of discovery at the intersection of computation and science. Now based in London, he has been exploring the frontiers of AI’s potential to tackle some of the most complex and abstract problems in mathematics. In his free time, he enjoys making electronic music and visual art, having occasionally performed music and built installations at festivals. His artistic pursuits reflect the same curiosity and creativity that have driven his scientific career.

As for advice to current students at Stuyvesant, Stan emphasizes the importance of following one’s curiosity. “Explore everything. Don’t be afraid to venture into areas you may not initially think are related to your main interests,” he advised. “Science, especially, is all about making connections across disciplines. The more you explore, the more you’ll find these connections, and they’ll open up new avenues for discovery.”

He also stressed the value of resilience and adaptability in the face of challenges. “There will be setbacks along the way, but if you’re passionate about something, keep pushing forward. The journey may not always be linear, but that’s what makes it interesting.”

Stan remains excited about the potential of AI to further revolutionize science, particularly in healthcare, mathematics, and biology. “We’re just scratching the surface,” he said. “AI will continue to help us understand the complexities of life, from diseases to the very building blocks of life itself. There are endless possibilities.”

For now, he remains humble in the wake of his achievements, but he is undeniably proud of his contributions to science. As he prepared to travel to Stockholm to celebrate his Nobel Prize, he reflected on how far he’s come—from Stuyvesant’s classrooms to one of the most prestigious honors in the world.