Renowned author and animal scientist Temple Grandin will return to Cornell to give a public talk, "On Autism," March 13, at 7:15 p.m. in Bailey Hall.

Free tickets for the talk are available at the Willard Straight Hall ticket office on campus, the Clinton House Ticket Center in downtown Ithaca and at the Ithaca and Cortland preschool sites of the Franziska Racker Centers.

Grandin is a Frank H.T. Rhodes Class of 1956 Visiting Professor appointed for a five-year term through 2010, and an associate professor of animal science at Colorado State University. She is well-known for designing humane livestock facilities in use in several countries, and has written and lectured extensively on animal handling and welfare. She often relates her affinity for animals to her own struggles with autism.

Her books include "Animals in Translation" and "Thinking in Pictures," and she is the subject of the title essay in "An Anthropologist on Mars" by Oliver Sacks, a former A.D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell. Grandin also will meet with faculty and students while on campus. She will be available for conversation at an informal tea, March 14 from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. in the Carol Tatkon Center Café Lounge, along with her faculty host, Joe Regenstein, professor of food science.

For more information on Grandin, visit http://www.grandin.com/.