Dr. Elsa A. Murano

Title: Professor and President Emerita, Department of Nutrition and Food Science, Texas A&M University

Murano is the university’s director of the Norman Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture, which helps to fight hunger and poverty in the developing world. At the institute, she has managed a project portfolio of $55 million. Murano is a former U.S. Department of Agriculture under secretary for food safety. From 2005 to 2007, she was vice chancellor of agricultural and life sciences of the Texas A&M University System, dean of the college of agriculture and life sciences, and director of the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station. She served as president of Texas A&M from 2008 to 2009.