Yes, but the context was also with that person as a current student, which was not in CS, and his CS background didn't have much bearing on what he discovered. It would have been just as relevant to say "Father of two debunked..."
A better title would have been "New Student in APS debunks core finding in the field."
HN readers are predominately CS/IT folks, and would probably relate better to that aspect of his person than others. That's certainly why I read the article.
Should I emphasize that he lives in the UK?
"UK citizen debunks positive psychology"
Or should I emphasize the statehood of the person debunked?
"UK citizen debunks US professor with one neat trick"
Just trying to summarize the relevant parts of the story without clickbait -- which the article did pretty well I thought.
The relevant part was his status as a APP student, so that's what I would go with for the headline.
Using an irrelevant bit because it will get more clicks seems to fall under the "click bait" domain, especially when he was a grad from CS, not a current major.
Personally I would be more interested to know that it was a newbie student to an academic field debunked a core tenet. "New APP Students Debunks Core APP Finding" is much more interesting to me than a coincidence of the former academics pursuits with mine. It implies the question, "If a brand new student to the field saw this error so quickly, why didn't anyone else?"
A better title would have been "New Student in APS debunks core finding in the field."