A Cambridge University graduate has won a prestigious scholarship to study at America’s top two universities, Harvard and Yale.

Stephanie Posner flew out to America this week to embark on a year-long course at Harvard, after being named a Kennedy Scholar for 2017.

She is one of just eight people who have won the backing of the Kennedy Memorial Trust, which supports outstanding British graduates with their ongoing education at Harvard or the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Since its inception in the 1960s following the assassination of President John F Kennedy, 520 British students have been named as Kennedy scholars.

Miss Posner, 23, graduated with a first in classics from Cambridge, where she was also president of the Jewish society.

She spend the coming year as a “special student” affiliated to Harvard’s Centre for Middle Eastern Studies, where she hopes to perfect her Hebrew and study Arabic.

Once she finishes at Harvard, she will take up a fellowship at Yale where she will study for a masters in global studies. Both, she hopes, will help her develop a career in international diplomacy.

Miss Posner, from Woodford Green, is the first in her family to go to university. She said she was: “very proud to have received scholarships to study at these prestigious universities”.