Founders
Axius SDC is led by an international team with complementary expertise across the United States, Canada, Brazil, and the United Kingdom - 40+ years combined experience in semantic data modeling and health informatics.
Timothy W. Cook
Founder & CEO
Academic Credentials
MSc. Health Informatics | BSc. Engineering Technology
Industry Experience
- 26+ years developing semantic interoperability frameworks
- Created Multi-Level Health Information Model (MLHIM)
- Collaborator with W3C, ISO, IHTSDO, and ONCHIT on semantic data standards
- Published peer-reviewed work on semantic interoperability and knowledge management
Military Service
US Marine Corps (retired Master Sergeant, 20+ years) - Communications Engineering and Information Warfare
Role at Axius SDC
Full-time CEO, leads product development, architecture, and standards engagement. Primary contact for partnerships and business development.
The Motivation
"After 20 years in military comms, I learned that if the message isn't clear, the mission fails. I built SDC so the message never degrades."
Dr. Luciana Tricai Cavalini, PhD
Co-Founder & Chief Medical Officer
Academic & Clinical Roles
- Associate Professor, Fluminense Federal University - UFF (Niteroi, Brazil)
- Family Health Physician, SUS (Ilhota, SC, Brazil)
- Clinician at Child and Teenager's CAPS, SUS (Itajai, SC, Brazil)
Educational Background
Medical degree (1994) | Master's in Public Health (1999) | PhD in Collective Health (2005) | Post-doctorate from Karolinska Institutet, Sweden (2008)
17-Year Collaboration with Tim
- First met at OSHCA conference, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (2008)
- KEY contributor to Multi-Level Health Information Model (MLHIM) development
- KEY contributor to generalization of MLHIM to S3Model framework
- Co-authored multiple publications on MLHIM and S3Model
Strategic Value for SDC
Brazilian SUS Domain Expert with Active Clinical Practice: Direct, real-world knowledge of Sistema Unico de Saude (Brazil's public health system serving 200M+ citizens). Validates language-agnostic approach for Portuguese-speaking markets and Latin American expansion (650M+ population).
The Motivation
"Healthcare data should do more than document care - it should continuously generate knowledge. My work has been driven by the idea that properly structured clinical information can power real-time insights for both medicine and public health. At Axius, we are building SDC to make that possible at scale."
Dr. Nikki Shaw, BSc(Hons), PhD, FBCS
Co-Founder & Chief Research Officer
Health informatics specialist and the first research chair in health informatics in Western Canada. Originally from England, Nikki is deaf and uses a service dog. She is very open to collaboration and partnerships.
Academic & Leadership Roles
- Full professor of biology (health sciences), Algoma University
- Speaker of the Senate, Algoma University
- Senate representative, Governor, Board of Governors, Algoma University
- NOSM University tutor
- Member, International Joint Commission's Health Professionals Advisory Board
Research Expertise
Health services research | Disability studies | Medical ethics | Health informatics
25-Year Collaboration with Tim
- First met at AMIA Conference 2000 (invited workshop on open source in healthcare)
- Co-authored peer-reviewed publication: "Open source and international health informatics: Placebo or panacea?"
- International advisor for FreePM (Tim's open source healthcare project)
- Co-founded PATH Group (health informatics research collaborative in Canada)
Strategic Value for SDC
Canadian Healthcare Systems Expert: 20 years experience across BC, Alberta, Ontario. Brings critical insight for language-agnostic data models in bilingual (English/French) environments and accessibility considerations.
The Motivation
"Research data is useless if it dies in a spreadsheet. I built SDC to ensure scientific knowledge outlives the grant cycle."
