One of Northern Colorado's most well-known figures is headed to the Smithsonian.
Temple Grandin is a professor of animal sciences at Colorado State University. She's highly regarded as an advocate for people with autism, and for the humane treatment of animals. Her life and career have been the subject of two films, including a new documentary released earlier this year.
And now, her portrait will be on the wall of the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.
Grandin is being recognized as a 2025 Portrait of a Nation Award honoree – meant to recognize extraordinary individuals who have made transformative contributions to the U.S. Her fellow honorees include business leader Jamie Dimon, U.S. poet laureate Joy Harjo, and filmmaker Steven Spielberg.
The 2025 portraits will be unveiled in a ceremony at the Smithsonian on Nov. 15. Ahead of that, Temple Grandin joined Erin O'Toole to talk about this unusual honor – and how she still has some important goals she wants to pursue.
Interview highlights
O’Toole: It took several years for this to come together. I think in 2021 you first met with the artist who created the portrait, David Lenz. And you met a few times. What did he want to know? What kind of questions did he ask you about your life and your work that he would use to create the painting?
Grandin: Well, mainly he was interested in getting me out next to cornfields to get some pictures of me. And then we went out to our experiment station, our university Experiment Station, and got some pictures with some cattle in the background. But then he wanted something with just an ag background, so we drove out east of town and found a cornfield, and he took a whole bunch of pictures of me in front of it.
O’Toole: The portrait is really unique. It shows you standing in a field. You are surrounded by cattle, and there's a kind of a glowing circle of light behind you. What was your response to the painting when you got to see it for the first time?
Grandin: Well, I got to see it on, printed out on email for the first time, and it was a nice color printer. And I went, Wow, this is really beautiful.
O’Toole: In reading about the portrait artist, he said he was especially inspired by a very famous quote of yours: “The world needs all kinds of minds.” Would you explain what that quote means to you?
Grandin: Well, I'm an extreme visual thinker. I'm what's called an object visualizer. Everything I think about is a picture, kind of like little phone pictures. Now, another kind of thinker is the visual, spatial, mathematical thinker – pattern thinking. I think in pictures. Mathematicians think in patterns. And there's actually research to back that up. And then there's word thinkers. And we need the different kinds of minds.
O’Toole: You are also the subject of a recent documentary called An Open Door. In this new documentary, you say that you want to open doors for other people now that that's what you think you should be doing in this next chapter of your life. Would you talk about that a bit?
Grandin: Well, I'm like doing a lot of talks to students, and I tell them to try lots of different things. I didn't start out as a child in the cattle industry. I got exposed to it as a teenager. It's important for students to get exposed to things, to find out what they might like to do. Also they might find out, “Oh, I hate this. I really don't want to do it.” Try on careers. I think it's important. I want to see young people get out to good careers. And I want to see people that are autistic get into good careers. Because I worked with people that were autistic -- they weren't diagnosed -- that owned machine shops and had very successful businesses.
O’Toole: Coming back to the portrait: Seeing a portrait at the Smithsonian can move someone to learn about history or the person who's in it, or it can simply inspire them. How do you hope people respond to your portrait when they see it?
Grandin: Well, I hope these kids that think differently get out and get good jobs. And for my kind of thinker, what we really need is very high-end skilled trades, like an airplane mechanic, for example. And AI is not going to replace these jobs. I don't want AI working on the steering on my airplane, thank you very much. Anything that's hands on – nurses. That's not going to go away. Those kind of jobs. You need teachers to work with kids, and especially little kids.
O’Toole: The award ceremony and the unveiling of the portraits happens later this month in Washington, D.C. I'm curious if you're going to be there, and maybe actually, finally see your portrait.
Grandin: I am going to be there. I'm having to change my plane reservations, to go in two days early, because of the problems with the air traffic control right now.
This conversation was edited for clarity and length.
