Pridha Kumar

Meet Pridha Kumar

Hometown: Queens, NY
College: College of Human Ecology
Major: Human Biology, Health, and Society
Year: 2022

Pridha Kumar ‘22, is one of this year's Robinson-Appel Humanitarian Awards recipients and a student in the College of Human Ecology, majoring in Human Biology, Health, and Society. Pridha is on the E-Board for Youth Outreach Undergraduates Reshaping Success (YOURS), which is an organization that connects low-income youth in the Dryden area with Cornell student mentors in an after school program. Their new virtual 14-week mentorship program aims to alleviate the effects of social isolation and lack of companionship by re-establishing the integral on-one-on mentor-mentee relationship that has been disrupted due to the COVID-19 pandemic by hosting exciting and educational online programs.

The Robinson-Appel Award will aid in purchasing supplies for their 14 unique activity kits and delivering them to the youth each week for program. YOURS was the first organization Pridha joined when she transferred to Cornell, and she immediately fell in love with its people and mission. It means a lot to her and everyone involved with YOURS to keep the program running in these unprecedented times in a novel format. Apart from YOURS, she is co-chapter leader for Cornell's chapter of Project Sunshine, a non-profit organization geared towards volunteering with and supporting hospitalized pediatric patients nationwide, a member of the Outreach Committee for Cornell Undergraduate Research Board (CURB), and a Cornell Tradition Fellow. She is also a volunteer EMT in NYC and loves working with kids in her free time. She hopes to work in the field of healthcare in the future and have her own dairy farm!