Ev Fedorenko is a highly recognized cognitive scientist that has been studying how humans parse language for years.
Of course this doesn't mean one shouldn't question what she says (that would be an obvious authority fallacy), but I do think it's fair to say that if you want to question it, the argument should be more elaborate that "this sounds like she has no idea of the topic".
I'm not the person you responded to, but I found the article unreadable because it kept going on about Ev’s life instead of her research. I'm sure her research is valuable and insightful, but with this style of reporting it is both inaccessible to me, and it gives me the (probably flawed) impression that her research isn't the part of her life that's supposed to be important or impressive.
FWIW, that's soft of the way a lot of physics books (not textbooks) approach the subject: Einstein/ Heisenberg/ Bohr/ Pauli/ Feynman/ Oppenheimer was this kind of person, oh, and by the way he came up with this theory of X. Apparently a lot of people like that way of presenting science, but it's not for everyone.
Of course this doesn't mean one shouldn't question what she says (that would be an obvious authority fallacy), but I do think it's fair to say that if you want to question it, the argument should be more elaborate that "this sounds like she has no idea of the topic".