Harvard University senior and Phoenixville native Olivia McGinnis has won a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship, writes Maddie Hanna for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

McGinnis was one of 32 Americans chosen from a pool of nearly a thousand applicants nominated by their colleges and universities. Two winners were selected from each of the 16 districts. They will start studying at Oxford University in England next September. The award will cover all university fees and expenses, including their travel costs.

McGinnis, who will join students from more than 60 countries, was notified she had been awarded the scholarship at an event with other finalists from the region.

The 21-year-old said she was “excited and proud and shocked.”

“All the other finalists were just so kind,” she said. “They all wanted good things in the world. To be chosen among them is the real honor.”

The young scholar describes herself as a “scientist in a very creative household.”

She was interested in physics while attending Phoenixville Area High School and was later drawn to neuroscience at Harvard, as it provided an opportunity to “kind of ask questions about humanity.”

Read more about Olivia McGinnis in The Philadelphia Inquirer here.

[uam_ad id=”80503″]

.

[uam_ad id=”80502″]