Jake Tashjian is the illustrator for the My Life As a…series, including My Life As a Ninja and My Life As a YouTuber. Jake also created and illustrated the Einstein the Class Hamster series. He collaborates on his novels with his mother, author Janet Tashjian. He has also illustrated several books for the author P.T. Evans.Fun fact: Jake is a visual learner. When Jake was in elementary school, he used to draw his vocabulary words on index cards. This later became the inspiration for the main character, Derek, in the My Life As series. In 2016 Jake co-founded Workshop 2.0, a non-profit foundation to train and hire other young artists on the Autism Spectrum.Jake grew up in Massachusetts and currently lives in Los Angeles. He is an avid surfer and filmmaker.