Tiasha Ayumi Shafiq, PhD is the Chief of Staff at Axonis. Previously, she was an intern with Axonis from 2019-2020 and joined full time in 2023 after completing her PhD.  She has 10+ years of biomedical research experience in stem cell biology, neurology, gene regulation and epigenetics and is passionate about building early-stage companies.

Tiasha completed her undergraduate with highest honors from University of California, Los Angeles in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology with a minor in Neuroscience and Biomedical Research. During that time she was the recipient of a number of multiple awards from Howard Hughes Medical Institute, URSP and the Vice Provost Award for Excellence. She completed her PhD in the lab of Dr. Danesh Moazed, Department of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School in 2022. Her research focused on transcriptional regulation, particularly the mechanistic understanding of maintenance of cellular identity through inheritance of gene silencing states.

Previously, she was a Venture Capital Fellow at Vida Ventures, LLC, a life sciences focused VC fund and a Senior Investment Fellow at Vectors Capital, where she evaluated biotech, heathtech and medical devices early-stage startups. Furthermore, she was a Business Development Fellow at the Harvard Medical School Office of Technology Development where she assessed Harvard invented life sciences technologies for commercialization and out-licensing potential.