She received her doctorate from MIT. Her research is focused on syntax and morphology, especially of understudied languages of the Americas. Most recently she was the linguist consultant for the recent blockbuster film “Arrival,” which follows a linguistics professor’s race to find a way to communicate with extraterrestrial visitors after gigantic spaceships land on Earth.The astrophysicist and author Janna Levin (“A Madman of Dreams of Turing Machines,” “How the Universe Got Its Spots” and, most recently “Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space”) has contributed to the understanding of black holes, the cosmology of extra dimensions, the sound of spacetime, and gravitational waves in the shape of space-time.