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Harvard junior Laila A. Nasher ’25 was awarded a 2024 Harry S. Truman Scholarship, the foundation announced in a press release Friday morning.
According to the scholarship’s website, Nasher is among 60 “aspiring public service leaders” who were awarded the scholarship for their “outstanding leadership potential” and “commitment to a career in government or the nonprofit sector.”
Nasher will receive up to $30,000 in funding for graduate studies and “leadership training, career counseling, and special internship and fellowship opportunities within the federal government.”
A History and Anthropology joint concentrator in Mather House, Nasher wrote in a statement that her experiences with “inner-city school closures and child marriage” have inspired her to “pursue a JD/PhD to change the social, educational, and legal landscape for Arab and inner-city communities.”
Nasher said in an interview that she was inspired to combat a lack of education in her home community after witnessing how “the privatization of education” was “utilized against low-income Black and brown bodies.”
Nasher also said she wants to use her education to connect “academia and policy and legislation with direct community organizing and directly with the communities who fall behind in the cracks, like the Yemeni American community.”
On campus, Nasher said that her interest in education has manifested in the form of research and advocacy for first-generation students.
Nasher said her experience launching the First-Generation Welcome Ceremony and the First-Generation Visibility Week through the Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations have been “incredibly pivotal” to her leadership on campus and helped her find a voice and a first generation community.
“I feel so privileged to be able to work with and for them,” she added.
For her, becoming a Truman Scholar was a “full-circle moment.”
Nasher said she was looking through her email to find her office hours on Thursday morning when she saw the congratulatory email, and was “immediately in a state of shock.”
“My immediate thought was, ‘Oh my god, I can’t wait to tell my friends and I can’t wait to tell these community members,’” Nasher said.
While it paid off in the end, Nasher said that the process of applying for the Truman Scholarship was grueling.
“It was by far the most intense application process I’ve ever gone through,” she said.
Nasher said that her next project is to create a scholarship for Yemeni girls pursuing college.
“I remember when I got here, I felt so alone and I ultimately just want to be this inspiration for other Yemeni American girls and Yemeni women generally,” she added.
