Ana María Fernández, is an Evolutionary Psychologist, and Professor of the School of Psychology at University of Santiago de Chile, where she founded and directs the Laboratory of Evolution and Interpersonal Relations since 2013: LERI (www.leri.cl). She completed her undergraduate studies in Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, and a master's degree in Experimental Psychology at California State University, San Bernardino. She obtained her Ph. D in Psychology from the University of Chile and did postdoctoral stay at the Center for Evolutionary Psychology of the University of California Santa Barbara, with Leda Cosmides, where she began her research on the adaptive function of emotions that sustain interpersonal relationships, particularly jealousy for the protection of attachment.

She approaches interpersonal relationships with a strong emphasis on Evolutionary Psychology and Human Ethology. Her research has focused on close relationships such as romantic, affiliative, and friendship jealousy, empathy, aggression, the strategies that support romantic relationships and their challenges. She has been invited to give lectures, courses and talks, and has written some book chapters on jealousy, intrasexual competition, mate value, empathy, emotions, among others, in national and international sources, such as the Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science (USA), the World book of Love (Holland), the Oxford Handbook of Women's Competition (Canada) and Manual on Evolutionary Psychology (Brazil). She collaborates with national and international researchers from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, United States, and United Kingdom.

Her main publications are in Interpersonal Relationships, Evolutionary Psychology and Psychometrics, in journals such as Scientific Reports, Personality and Individual Differences, Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Human Ethology, European Journal of Psychological Assessment and some local sources. She is currently Associate Editor of Psicologia: Reflexão e Crítica (PRC) in Brazil; and has received funding for research from various universities and granting agencies, leading FONDECYT grant of the Government of Chile "Jealousy as an adaptation to protect romantic bonds" (2018-2021), and she was granted in 2019 a postdoctoral stay from “Fundacion Carolina” to study trust and jealousy at the University of Leon, Spain.