In parallel, in 1994–1996 Nekrasov did his graduate work at Princeton University, under the supervision of David Gross.
In 2000 he moved to France as a permanent professor at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques.
For his discovery of noncommutative instantons together with Albert Schwarz in 1998,[9] noncommutative monopoles and monopole strings with David Gross in 2000 and for his work with Alexander S. Gorsky on the relations between gauge theories and many-body systems he was awarded the Grand Prix Jacques Herbrand [fr] of the French Academy of Sciences in 2004.
For his contributions to topological string theory and the ADHM construction he received the Hermann Weyl Prize in 2004.
[10] The prize was awarded for Nekrasov's “elegant application of powerful mathematical techniques to extract exact results for quantum field theories, as well as shedding light on integrable systems and non-commutative geometry.” In 2024, Uppsala University of Sweden, awarded Nekrasov with an honorary doctorate.