With national recognition and an elite education under her belt, a Unionville High School graduate will soon take her place on the cutting edge of environmental science’s global stage.

Meghan Shea, a Popular Mechanics Top 10 innovator and Stanford University senior, has been honored as a Rhodes Scholar, according to a Philadelphia Inquirer report by Chris Palmer.

Upon graduation, the West Chester native will embark on an expenses-paid trip to the University of Oxford in England for graduate study of nature, society, and environmental governance.

“Definitely in shock,” she said.

Oxford’s Rhodes Scholarship is worth about $68,000 a year, and provides two or three years of education at one of the world’s most prestigious institutions.

The new Rhodes Scholar has long wanted to become a marine biologist.

“I’ve been interested in the ocean for as long as I can remember,” she said.

But that’s not all that will interest her at Oxford.

“All of the other finalists were doing the coolest work in disciplines I didn’t even know existed. I’m really excited to get to learn with this network of people.”

Shea grabbed the attention of Popular Mechanics at the age of 18 by designing an E. coli water filter, and has since invested time away from Stanford in the ocean off Hawaii and aboard a ship based in Tahiti.

Read more about Shea and her selection as a Rhodes Scholar in the Philadelphia Inquirer here.