Vera Axyonova is an EASI-Hurford Next Generation fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Her research focuses on external democratization and human rights promotion, civil society development, and security in post-soviet Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Axyonova is also a post-doctoral researcher and lecturer at Justus Liebig University Giessen and Fulda University of Applied Sciences in Germany, and an associate researcher with the Europe-Central Asia Monitoring program at the Madrid-based think tank FRIDE.