President,
Texas A&M University
Dr. Elsa A. Murano
Notes from Evan Smith
"At the home of the Twelfth Man, she’s the First Everything. It was only a few months ago that Elsa Murano became the first woman and the first Hispanic, as well as the first person under 50, to serve as president of Texas A&M University in College Station, the state’s oldest public university. A native of Cuba, 49-year-old Murano arrived in the U.S. at age fourteen and grew up in Miami. She earned a bachelor's degree in biological sciences from Florida International University and both a master's degree in anaerobic microbiology and a Ph.D. in food science and technology from Virginia Tech. When she stopped by to chat about all things Aggie in February, not long after she started her new job, two bits of news were very much on her mind: a massive recall of tainted beef, the kind of thing she dealt with routinely in her D.C. years, and the decision by Fidel Castro to step down as Cuba’s president. The latter was clearly a moment for reflection for someone who clearly remembers standing on the tarmac in Havana, at age 2, on July 4, of all days, waiting to board a plane so her family could flee its repressive homeland. For that young girl to grow up to be not just an academic but a university president, and not just the president of any university but of hidebound, myth-and-tradition heavy Texas A&M — well, who could have imagined it?" - Evan Smith, Texas Monthly Talks, Broadcast 04.10.08
