Carole K. Hooven

Carole K. Hooven is a prominent human evolutionary biologist, author, and award-winning educator. She serves as a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where her work addresses issues related to sex and gender, health, psychology, and academic freedom in higher education. Additionally, she is an associate in Harvard University's Department of Psychology, working in Steven Pinker's lab, and is an active member of the newly established Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard.

Hoover authored the acclaimed book "T: The Story of Testosterone, the Hormone That Dominates and Divides Us," which the Wall Street Journal praised as “clear-eyed and crisply written…a gorgeous culmination of an odyssey both professional and personal.” Since its publication in 2021, she has been involved in significant debates about language in science education and academic freedom. Due to a lack of support from Harvard for her right to express her scientific views without harassment, Hoover retired from her long-term teaching and administrative position there in January 2023.

Hoover's research, writing, and teaching, primarily conducted over two decades in Harvard's Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, focused on behavioral endocrinology -- specifically the relationships among hormones, the brain, behavior, and the environment in humans and other animals. She is particularly interested in how evolutionary forces and hormones shape the intricate interplay between biology and culture. She is also a public advocate for free speech and evidence-based social, educational, and legal policies concerning sex and gender.

Hoover has made numerous television, radio, and podcast appearances, including on BBC News, Fox & Friends, Dr. Phil, and The Joe Rogan Experience. Her work has been featured in outlets such as the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, and she has published in academic journals including Hormones and Behavior, Neuropsychologia, and Archives of Sexual Behavior.

She has written a Free Press article on why she left Harvard, an opinion piece in the New York Times about "sex assigned at birth," a Quillette article on sex differences in chess, and appeared on a podcast with Andrew Sullivan. She is at work on a new book focused on understanding the science of sex and its role in easing boys' transition through adolescence to manhood.

Hoover holds a PhD in Biological Anthropology from Harvard University and a BA in psychology from Antioch College.