The author might have been smart enough to get through Harvard, but she clearly didn’t know how to interview well. Think about job interviews.
Interviewers start with formulaic questions to get the subject talking. A good interviewer notices the point where the subject seems a little more animated and less closed/coached/nervous, and then takes the interview down that path to see where it goes.
I’d say the author was too busy checking boxes next to her list of questions. She wasn’t watching the teenager’s face or body language.