Rossella Gabriele, a 2019 magna cum laude graduate of Washington and Lee University who received a BS with a double major in physics and global politics, is the university’s 17th Rhodes Scholar. The Rhodes Trust announced Sunday that Gabriele, 22, of St. Louis, Missouri, was one of 32 scholars chosen this year. The scholarship, which averages $70,000 per year, and up to as much as $250,000, fully funds two to four years of study at the University of Oxford in England.

The Rhodes Scholarships were created in 1902. They are awarded on the basis of academic excellence, personal energy, ambition for impact, ability to work with others, a commitment to making a strong difference for good in the world, concern for the welfare of others, consciousness of inequities and potential for leadership.