POMFRET — Dr. Temple Grandin will appear as the 2019 Schwartz Visiting Fellow at 7 p.m. Jan. 18 at the Hard Auditorium at Pomfret School.
Grandin is a world-renowned autism spokesperson, and a widely cited proponent for the humane treatment of livestock.
Today she is a professor of animal sciences at Colorado State University.
“We are very excited to have someone of her stature and talent visit Pomfret,” said Library Director David Ring, who is coordinating the visit. “It is a wonderful opportunity for students and faculty alike.”
This event is free and open to the public, but an RSVP is required.
To reserve a seat, visit www.pomfret.org.
During her stay, she is expected to make the case for why the world needs people with autism.
“Half of the programmers in Silicon Valley are on the autism spectrum,” she said. “There is value in seeing things differently.”
Considered an autistic savant, Grandin is known for her amazing ability to describe how her mind works. She says words are her second language and that she thinks “totally in pictures,” using her vast visual memory to translate information into a slideshow of mental images that can be manipulated and correlated at will.
 “My brain is visually indexed,” she says. “Everything in my mind works like a search engine set to the image function.”
Grandin is also famous for her work with animals, specifically the humane treatment of livestock at slaughter.
While still in college, she began studying the behavior of cattle — how they react to people, movements, objects, and light — and credits her own autism with helping her see things from the animal’s point of view.
Born to a wealthy Boston family, Grandin did not speak until she was three-and-a-half years old.
“I had all the full blown autism symptoms,” she said.
“No speech, screaming, just everything, fully autistic.”
She was saved by her mother, who actively sought out and paid for private schools with sympathetic staff that were willing to work with her daughter’s special needs, which included early speech therapy.
Grandin earned her bachelor’s degree in human psychology from Franklin Pierce College in 1970, a master’s degree in animal science from Arizona State University in 1975, and a doctoral degree in animal science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1989.

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