Elsa A. Murano, President, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX
Dr. Elsa A. Murano is the 23rd President of Texas A&M University. She is the first woman and first Hispanic-American to lead the oldest public institution of higher learning in Texas. Dr. Murano worked her way up the academic ranks and into administration from an unconventional beginning. At the age of 2, her family departed from Havana, Cuba, when Fidel Castro came into power. After living in several Latin American countries, she and her family settled in Miami when she was 14 years old. At that time, she only knew Spanish, a language in which she is still fluent, but quickly mastered English and launched an educational career that carried her through the doctoral ranks.
In 1995, she joined the Texas A&M faculty. In 2001 President George W. Bush asked her to serve as Under Secretary for Food Safety for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, making her the highest-ranking food safety official in the U.S. government. She returned to Texas A&M in January 2005 as Vice Chancellor and Dean of Agriculture and Life Sciences until being appointed President of Texas A&M. Dr. Murano received an undergraduate degree from Florida International University, and earned both a graduate degree and a doctorate from Virginia Tech.