Ali Hazelwood

Ali Hazelwood is the pen name of an Italian-American neuroscientist and academic who became one of the breakout romance authors of the 2020s by fusing STEM workplace settings with classic romantic comedy tropes. She first gained a following writing STEM-themed fanfiction before publishing The Love Hypothesis in 2021, a novel about a PhD student who fake-dates a professor, which became a massive bestseller and launched her career in traditional publishing. She has since published Love on the Brain, Bride — her first foray into paranormal romance — and Deep End, continuing to draw on her own experience as a woman in a male-dominated scientific field. New readers should start with The Love Hypothesis, both her signature debut and the clearest expression of her voice: nerdy, self-deprecating narrators, workplace-adjacent tension, and genuine affection for scientific culture rather than mockery of it. Hazelwood continues to work in academia alongside her writing career, and her books are frequently credited with popularizing "STEMinist" romance as a recognizable subgenre. There is no film or television adaptation of her novels to date.