Human-Animal Interaction Research Series

Dr. Grandin did not talk until she was three and a half years old. She was fortunate to get early speech therapy. Her teachers also taught her how to wait and take turns when playing board games. She was mainstreamed into a regular kindergarten at age five. Oliver Sacks wrote in the forward of Thinking in Pictures that her first book, Emergence: Labeled Autistic, was “unprecedented because there had never before been an inside narrative of autism.” Dr. Sacks profiled Dr. Grandin in his best-selling book "An Anthropologist on Mars."

Dr. Grandin became a prominent author and speaker on both autism and animal behavior. Today, she is a professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University. She also has a successful career in consulting on both livestock-handling equipment design and animal welfare. She has been featured on NPR (National Public Radio) and a BBC Special – "The Woman Who Thinks Like a Cow". She has also appeared on National TV shows such as Larry King Live, 20/20, Sixty Minutes, and Fox and Friends, and has a TED Talk from 2010. 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.

Dr. Leslie Irvine is Professor of Sociology at the University of Colorado at Boulder and Director of CU’s Animals and Society Certificate Program. She received her Ph.D. from Stony Brook University. Her research focuses on the roles of animals in society. She is the author of several books, including My Dog Always Eats First, which examines homeless people’s relationships with their companion animals. After Hurricane Katrina, Leslie worked in the facility that sheltered animals rescued from New Orleans. The experience formed the basis for her book, Filling the Ark: Animal Welfare in Disasters. In If You Tame Me: Understanding our Connection with Animals, Leslie provides evidence for a sense of self among animals. Leslie has also studied animal sheltering, animal abuse, animals in popular culture, and the feminization of veterinary medicine.

Dr. Jason Stull, VMD, MPVM, PhD, DACVPM, is an Associate Professor in veterinary medicine at the University of Prince Edward Island.  He has published over 50 peer-reviewed publications and numerous book chapters. Over the past 10 years, he has taught and researched various areas related to the Spectrum of Care. He holds a VMD from the University of Pennsylvania, a Master's in Preventive Veterinary Medicine from the University of California at Davis, and a PhD in veterinary infectious disease from the University of Guelph.  He is a Diplomat of the American College of Veterinary Preventive Medicine.  He is an Associate Editor for JAVMA/AJVR and Section Editor of the Access to Veterinary Care section of the journal, Advances in Small Animal Care. 

Dr. François Lanoë, an anthropologist and archaeologist, shares about his work, which explores the early peopling of North America, human ecology and adaptation to past environmental change, Indigenous perspectives on the archaeological record, and the complex interactions between Indigenous peoples and European colonists.