Dr. Temple Grandin is an academic inventor and animal behavior scientist. She's a proponent of the humane treatment of livestock for slaughter and the author of more than 60 scientific papers on animal behavior. Dr. Grandin is a consultant to the livestock industry, where she offers advice on animal behavior.
As an autistic person, Dr. Grandin did not talk until she was three and a half years old. Eventually, she became one of the first autistic people to document the insights she gained from her personal experiences with autism. Today she's a prominent author and speaker on both autism and animal behavior, and a professor of animal science at Colorado State University. She also has a successful career consulting on both livestock handling, equipment design, and animal welfare. Dr. Grandin has been featured on NPR and BBC and has appeared on national TV shows such as Larry King Live, 20/20, 60 Minutes, Fox and Friends, and she has a 2010 Ted Talk.
Articles about Dr. Grandin have appeared in Time Magazine, New York Times, Discover Magazine, Forbes and USA Today. HBO made an Emmy Award-winning movie about her life, and she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2016. When Dr. Grandin was young, she was considered weird and teased and bullied in high school. The only place she had friends were activities where there was a shared interest such as horses, electronics, or model rockets. Mr. Carlock, her science teacher, was an important mentor who encouraged her interest in science. When she had a new goal of becoming a scientist, she had a reason for studying. Today, half of the cattle in the United States are handled in facilities she has designed.
Connect with Temple:
Welcome to Temple Grandin's Official Autism Website