Spyridon Manolidis

Year 12 student in Wales. I work on mathematics, physics, and anything in between.

About

I was born in Greece and now live in Wales. From a young age, I've always loved problem solving and hence have had a natural interest in mathematics and adjacent fields.

This website features my portfolio and my blog. Even so, it does not include everything about me1, and if you're interested on a more holistic view of me, feel free to contact me.

Currently: Working with my team, Les Gallois2, on winning the Ritangle competition, and preparing for BMO1.

Education

2026–28

A-levels

Year 12 student reading Mathematics, Further Mathematics, Physics, and Chemistry A-levels at Cardiff College.3

2021–26

GCSEs

Studied at Corpus Christi Catholic High School and achieved 12 A* grades and a distinction grade in Additional Mathematics.
Led the prefect team as the Head Boy.

Ongoing

Self-directed study

Olympiad mathematics, philosophy problems, AI, or anything else that piques my interest.
Find out more by reading my blog.

Research & writing

Summer 2026

EtymoStega: Etymological Steganography in Language Models

Original research as part of the Non-Trivial Fellowship.
Created a new steganographic scheme and successfully trained LLMs to use it with over 90% accuracy.

DOI

Summer 2025

A Proposal to Use Precision Livestock Farming for Epidemiology

Research as part of the Electric Sheep Futurekind Fellowship. Wrote a proposal on how PLF technology can be used with graph theory in epidemiology.

DOI

Spring 2025

Do we make our own luck?

Used quantum mechanics to argue that we do not entirely create our own luck.
Runner up in an Oxplore Essay Competition.

PDF

Selected projects

Summer 2026

Angleprobe

Vibecoded an opensource BYOK browser extension that allows you to select text on a website and have AI evaluate it for biases, inaccuracies and discrepancies.

Source Code

Spring 2025

BlueQubit Peak Circuit Hackathon

Ansätze solutions to the 2025 BlueQubit Yale Hackathon.

CodeLeaderboard

Spring 2024

Multivariable Calculus Notes

A set of notes from learning multivariable calculus on Khan Academy.

Notes

Awards & recognition

Summer 2026

Trinity Grade 8: Violin Certificate

Spring 2025

UKMT Hamilton Olympiad Certificate

Spring 2025

International Research Olympiad Certificate

Spring 2025

Oxplore Essay Competition Certificate

Experience & programmes

Summer 2026

Non-Trivial Fellowship

Competitive follow-on round from the Foundations Programme. I was given mentorship and access to grant money to do original research and created EtymoStega.

Certificate

Spring 2026

Non-Trivial Foundations Programme

Selected to complete the Non-Trivial Foundations Programme. I learnt how to choose research problems and how to meaningfully execute academic research.

Certificate

Winter 2026

Leaf Course: Dangers and Dilemmas of AI

Competitive course encompassing many fields of AI including scaling, mechanistic interpretability, governance, and agent foundations.

Certificate

Summer 2025

Work Experience @ Bute Energy and Green GEN Cymru

Completed work experience for Bute Energy and Green GEN Cymru. I worked on creating sustainable ways to repurpose decommissioned turbine blades and a simple mathematical scoring system to determine where infrastructure should be placed.
Reference available upon request.

Summer 2025

Electric Sheep Futurekind Fellowship

Fellowship on the crossroads of AI and animal welfare. I produced the precision-livestock-farming proposal above.

Certificate

2025–2026

Seren Academy

Welsh Government programme for high-attaining state-school students; nominated by my school.

Spring 2023

First Give Programme

Ran a campaign for a local charity with my team. Created a petition, a presentation, and a song called Just the Tenovus.
Won runner up.

Certificate

Contact

The quickest way to reach me is spyridon@manolidis.me. If you have a programme, a research group or a mentorship that might suit a sixteen-year-old with a taste for hard problems, feel free to reach out – I read everything.

Footnotes

  1. For example, outside the academic setting, I enjoy participating in Debate Club, Orchestra, and taking lessons in Byzantine Music. ↩

  2. Meaning 'the Welsh' in French, but also inspired by Évariste Galois. ↩

  3. Previously known as Cardiff Sixth Form College. ↩