Dr. Grandin, who didn’t speak until she was three and a half, was fortunate to receive early speech therapy, learn social skills like turn-taking in board games, and be mainstreamed into kindergarten at five. Her first book, Emergence: Labeled Autistic, offered a unique first-person view of autism. In his best-selling Anthropologist on Mars, Oliver Sacks wrote that Grandin’s book was unprecedented because there had never been an inside narrative of autism.

Now a professor at Colorado State University, she’s renowned for her work in animal behavior and welfare, consulting globally and appearances on television (NPR, BBC and other prominent media). In 2010, Time named her one of “The 100 Most Influential People in the World.” She was honored with an Emmy-winning HBO movie and introduction into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2016. The award-winning autism self-advocate shares her message about the disorder and “differently-abled” brains.