> I get the impression that Morgan Phillips avoids saying she has a background in CS due to not holding a degree in it. I think she has every right to state that she does have a background

That seems a bit semantic to me. She's basically saying "I never studied or worked extensively with X, so I have knowledge gaps about Y [which is tightly related to X, and often comes by studying X]".

As another researcher who is also sans-degree, I can see where she's coming from. To someone outside the field I would never split hairs about whether or not I have a formal CS background, whereas I might when speaking with a colleague or a professional peer.