Kristin Hook

Hook was born in Corpus Christi, Texas, and raised in a working-class family in South Texas, according to Ballotpedia and the Herald-Zeitung.[2][5] With help from scholarships and Pell grants, she earned two bachelor's degrees, in biology and in a humanities honors program, from the University of Texas at Austin in 2007, and she received a Ph.D. in animal behavior from Cornell University in 2016.[2][3][4][5] She then joined Teach for America and spent three years teaching middle school science in New York City, according to her campaign website. She later worked as a postdoctoral researcher in reproductive biology at the University of Maryland and, according to the same site, organized grassroots efforts for women scientists in the Washington, D.C., area.[2][3]

In 2020 Hook moved into federal science and technology policy work, first as an oversight investigator in Sen. Elizabeth Warren's office through an American Association for the Advancement of Science fellowship, then at the National Institutes of Health, and then as a biologist at the Government Accountability Office, which allowed her to return to Texas.[2][3][4][5] She was the Democratic nominee against Rep. Chip Roy in Texas's 21st District in 2024, and Roy won with 61% of the vote.[4][5] Hook won the March 3, 2026 Democratic primary with 60.1% of the vote, defeating Regina Vanburg and Gary Taylor, for the seat opened when Roy ran for Texas attorney general.[2][7] She received 45.5% of the vote to Mark Teixeira's 54.5%, according to unofficial results reported by NBC News.[1]