Who is Temple Grandin?

(CANVAS STAFF REPORTS) - The name Temple Grandin will be familiar to anyone who watched Sunday night's Emmy broadcast, considering the HBO biography starring Claire Danes was nominated for seven awards and took five.

Yahoo! News reported that Grandin, who was present in the audience, was thanked repeatedly for sharing her life story during multiple wins including Danes' best actress award.

Those who haven't seen the movie (or didn't watch the award show) will likely not be as familiar with the story of the woman who was diagnosed with autism at age 2 and went on to earn numerous advanced degrees, including a doctorate in animal science from the University of Illinois.

Yahoo! reported that the associate professor of animal science at Colorado State University is best known for inventing more humane slaughterhouse practices, which has won her the praise of PETA. She is a top advocate of both autism understanding and animal welfare.

Her inventions included a " hug machine ," a deep touch pressure device that she created to help her overcome problems of oversensitivity to touch. She wrote that research into autistic children shows they seek out deep pressure sensations, which can be seen as relaxing and calming while light touches alert the nervous system.

Her achievements earned her a place on the 2010 TIME 100 list, the magazine's annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. 

"What do neurologists, cattle and McDonald's have in common?" asked Marc Hauser, who wrote the TIME profile. "They all owe a great deal to one woman, a renowned animal scientist born with autism, Temple Grandin."

Hauser wrote about her efforts to reduce cattle's stress and went on to credit her with being "an extraordinary source of inspiration for autistic children, their parents ’ and all people."

Grandin discussed autism at a 2010 TED conference as she talked about how the world needs different types of thinkers. She talked about how autistic minds concentrate more on details and said she is concerned people are getting away from "hands-on stuff" like the arts in school.

To illustrate her point Grandin went on to relate her thinking to her efforts with animals and talked about how people were not noticing the cattle were spooked by such things as shadows, a chain or a hose on the ground. She described the process of how she would "see" what the cattle are seeing.

"You have to get away from verbal language. I think in pictures, I don't think in language," she said. "I see only specific pictures. They splash up in my memory just like Google, the pictures."

PETA, which awarded her its Proggy Visionary Award in 2004, stated a person who consults with the livestock industry on the design of slaughterhouses would not immediately seem like the type of person who would receive a Proggy.

"However, Dr. Grandin's improvements to animal-handling systems found in slaughterhouses have decreased the amount of fear and pain that animals experience in their final hours, and she is widely considered the world's leading expert on the welfare of cattle and pigs," PETA stated.

Yahoo! said Danes prepared to portray Grandin in the movie by listening to audiotapes of her speaking engagements and working with a choreographer to perfect her mannerisms. The movie shares Grandin's struggles of being diagnosed with autism during a time when many doctors did not even understand it.

The movie received 15 total nominations and seven wins including the untelevised Creative Art Emmys handed out the weekend before the telecast.

Its top awards included Outstanding Made for Television Movie as Mick Jackson received an oustanding directing award, Danes a lead actress award, Julia Ormond a supporting actress award and David Strathairn a supporting actor award.