Dr. Silakov earned a bachelor's degree in Physics at Kazan State University in Russia in 2001 and a master's degree in 2003 in the same University. He did his graduate research in Max-Planck Institute for Bioinorganic Chemistry, Germany, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Lubitz. With this work, he earned a doctoral degree in Physical Chemistry at the Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Germany in 2007. Dr. Silakov continued working at Max-Planck Institute for Bioinorganic Chemistry as a postdoctoral fellow until 2012. In 2011 he received a John Weil Young Investigator Award from the International Electron Paramagnetic Resonance Society for his work on understanding the mechanisms of [FeFe] hydrogenases. In 2012, he moved to Penn State for a postdoctoral study. He joined the Penn State faculty in Chemistry Department in 2017. In 2020, Dr. Silakov received a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award. In 2024, he was promoted to Associate Professor.