- Joined
- May 13, 2010
- Messages
- 5,250
- Reaction score
- 763
- Location
- Los Angels, USA
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Slightly Conservative
Elsa’s parents escaped from Cuba when she was 2 years old. President Bush appointed Murano Under Secretary of agriculture for food safety at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a position which she held from 2001 to 2004. Under her leadership, food recalls dramatically decreased. In January 2008, Elsa Murano was named the twenty-third president of Texas A&M University, the first Hispanic and the first woman to hold the position. She resigned as president of the university in June 2009.Elsa Murano
Early life, education and early career
Elsa Murano
Murano was born as Elsa Alina Casales in 1959 in Havana, Cuba. She fled Cuba with her family in July 1961, when her parents decided to leave during Fidel Castro's communist uprising. Once her parents divorced, she moved with her mother and three siblings into an apartment in Miami, Florida in 1973. Although Murano spoke no English upon her arrival, she enrolled at Miami Coral Park High School. Her mother, who worked as a security guard and a department store clerk, urged the children to graduate high school and attend college. In 1977, Murano graduated from high school, and enrolled at Miami Dade College. After two years, she transferred to Florida International University. She received her bachelor's degree in biological sciences from FIU in 1981. She attended Virginia Tech to receive her master's degree in anaerobic microbiology in 1987, and then her doctorate in food science and technology in 1990.[8]
From 1990 to 1995, Murano served as an assistant professor in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Preventative Medicine at Iowa State University.[9] In 1995, she joined Texas A&M as an associate professor in the Department of Animal Science and as the associate director of the Center for Food Safety within the Institute for Food Science and Engineering.
Murano testifying at a Senate hearing in 2006.