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Arya S. Prasad ’27 was elected the next president of the Harvard Phillips Brooks House Association, the organization announced Thursday.
Prasad, alongside newly-elected vice president Marina Gonzalez ’27 and 20 other students who will serve on next year’s PBHA Officers Committee, will take office on Feb. 1, 2026.
Prasad, who is currently one of the organization’s programming chairs, has been a part of PBHA since her freshman fall, when she volunteered for CIVICs and the Mission Hill After School Program.
“Over the course of the past two and a half years, I’ve had the chance to direct, volunteer, learn,” she said. “That fall, through my experience of mentorship between other students after school, I decided to run for the officer’s team.”
Prasad said in her new role as president she will serve as a “supporter” and a “safety net,” for the organization. Her responsibilities encompass keeping tabs on the inner workings of the organization and advancing strategic priorities, along with steering the image she holds for PBHA’s future.
“We are helping to curate the culture of care that we want to see in the organization,” she said.
Prasad and Gonzalez said they hope to embody “intentionality,” “radical love,” and “stewardship” during their tenure. Prasad characterized PBHA as an organization that prioritizes “expressing love, showing care, showing compassion, in every area of the work that we do, even when it’s hard.”
The new board said that it anticipates challenges in upholding some of PBHA’s key tenements amid recent challenges to the University’s funding and diversity, equity and inclusion programing by the Trump administration,
“The current attacks on DEI have been not only very harmful to our student leadership, but also just the communities that we work with, and it's been very hard to see, but PBHA has always, will always be a very welcoming place on campus,” Gonzalez said.
Prasad said that funding cuts have had significant impacts on their partner organizations.
“In the greater Boston, Cambridge community, a lot of our community partners right now are also facing new challenges, whether that be from governmental threats, fundraising threats,” Prasad said.
In the face of these obstacles, Prasad and Gonzalez said they are committed to championing their core goals, which includes ensuring both summer and term-time program quality.
They also emphasized the reliance on partnerships with local organizations, which provide PBHA students with educational experiences in service and advocacy.
“PBHA means peace defined by the people,” Prasad added. “It is the people, both in terms of the mentorship on the student development side, but also the community partners we work with,” she said.
Prasad added that the goal of PBHA is not just to fulfill needs, but work towards long-term solutions.
“In an ideal world, you wouldn’t have shelters,” Prasad said. “We’re not trying to manufacture need, we’re trying to meet communities where they’re at and build with them.”
“Not just be a Harvard savior, but instead actually provide something of quality and something of use,” Gonzalez said.
The PBHA is a student-led 501(c)(3) non profit organization. As the largest public service organization on Harvard’s campus, it runs 86 initiatives, including the Cambridge After School Program and Harvard Square Homeless Shelter.
