Brittany Heyworth Marling (born August 7, 1982, Chicago, Illinois) is an American writer, producer, director, and actress. She graduated from Georgetown University in 2005 with a degree in economics. She was named "Brit" after her Norwegian maternal great-grandmother. She first gained recognition in 2004 for the documentary Boxers and Ballerinas which she co-wrote with Mike Cahill and Nicholas Shumaker and co-directed with Mike Cahill. Marling also co-wrote, co-produced, and acted in the 2011 films Sound of My Voice and Another Earth. Both of these films were featured at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, with Another Earth winning the Alfred P. Sloan Prize for outstanding film with science, technology or math as a major theme.