Stacie Weninger, PhD, is a Venture Partner with F-Prime. She is a neuroscientist, biotech leader, and investor with more than 20 years of experience building, advising, and backing innovative neuroscience companies. She focuses on advancing neuroscience research and early-stage therapeutics through strategic collaboration, investment, and advisory roles, helping translate early scientific discoveries into novel medicines and build enduring companies.
Dr. Weninger served as President of the F-Prime Biomedical Research Initiative (FBRI), where she helped catalyze academic–industry collaboration and advance early neuroscience research toward therapeutic development.
Dr. Weninger currently serves as CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Rugen Therapeutics and serves on the Boards of Aratome, Atalanta, Engrail, and Tenvie Therapeutics. She was a founding member of the Boards of Directors of Denali Therapeutics (NASDAQ: DNLI) and Neumora Therapeutics (NASDAQ: NMRA) and has held Board roles at numerous companies, including Annexon Biosciences (NASDAQ: ANNX), BRI-Alzan (acquired by MeiraGTx), Digital Cognition Technologies (acquired by Linus Health), Enspectra, Inscopix (acquired by Bruker Corporation), and Sironax.
In addition to her work in company creation and biotech investing, Dr. Weninger holds leadership and advisory roles across the neuroscience ecosystem. She serves on the Board of Target ALS, the Governing Board of the Michael J. Fox Foundation’s Targets to Therapeutics Initiative, and is a member of the Harvard Experts in Residence (XIR) network. Dr. Weninger is a member of numerous Scientific Advisory Boards, including those of Denali Therapeutics, the Breuer Foundation, Brown University’s Carney Center for Alzheimer’s Disease Research, the Harvard Blavatnik Biomedical Accelerator Fund, the Indian Institute of Science’s Centre for Brain Research, MIT’s Yang–Tan Center for Molecular Therapeutics, the External Advisory Board of Boston Children’s Hospital’s Rosamund Stone Zander Translational Neuroscience Center, and the UK Dementia Research Institute, among others. She also chairs the Collaboration for Alzheimer’s Prevention, which focuses on sharing learnings and best practices to accelerate clinical trials in early-stage Alzheimer’s disease. She previously served as President of Alzforum for more than a decade and continues as a special advisor.
Prior to joining F-Prime, Dr. Weninger was Senior Director of Science Programs at the Fidelity Foundations, where she oversaw biomedical research funding initiatives. Earlier in her career, she served as Project Manager and Senior Analyst for the Task Force on Women in Science at Harvard University and was a Senior Scientific Editor at Neuron (Cell Press). She began her scientific career as a postdoctoral research fellow in Dr. Bruce Yankner’s laboratory at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Weninger received her PhD in neuroscience from Harvard University as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute predoctoral fellow and earned a B.S. in chemistry with highest honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.