If you attended any of Texas A&M’s home football games this season, I hope you’ll recognize the three faces below: Dr. Leslie Ruyle, Matthew Curtis ’19 and Gracie Arenas Strittmatter ’04 ’08. These individuals were featured in a campaign that ran this fall showcasing exceptional people who are leading by example by addressing challenging problems, innovating and giving back. 

One of these folks, Dr. Leslie Ruyle, is featured in this issue’s faculty feature. Dr. Ruyle is an associate research scientist who has devoted her career to tackling problems of conservation and human-wildlife coexistence. With Aggie students often in tow, she’s traveled to more than 70 countries to work on projects related to protecting the natural habitats and well-being of animals, and promoting entrepreneurship and economic development in regions of conflict. Her story shows us that there is no limit to the good Aggies can do when equipped with global mindsets.

Veteran Matthew Curtis ’19 decided to attend Texas A&M after a deployment to Afghanistan and two training operations in the Kingdom of Jordan. Today, using resources in the College of Engineering, he’s combining his military and academic experiences to design a better tourniquet that can be applied faster and more easily than standard models. His work is still in progress, but he thinks that military personnel and civilian first responders could one day use his product to save lives. Matthew is the deserving recipient of three scholarships from Bebe and Bruce Glasgow ’73, the Knauss Family, and Lou and C.C. Burton ’42. His is just one of many stories of Aggies who go above and beyond what is expected of them.

Gracie Arenas Strittmatter ’04 ’08 is a technical art director for BioWare, a division of Electronic Arts that specializes in creating roleplaying and story-based sci-fi video games. Her interest in gaming began while playing video games with her brother growing up, and Texas A&M’s visualization department gave her the skills she needed to pursue gaming as a career. Today, Gracie and her husband Willem ’02 are giving back to aspiring gamers through an endowed scholarship they created for visualization students in 2015. Through her story, we see how Aggies are dedicated to helping the next generation.

I encourage you to learn more about these individuals in the videos below, which bring their stories to life through vivid animation. Here at the Texas A&M Foundation, we are honored to tell so many great Aggie stories—not just in Spirit, but in all our communications.