Course Lecturers 

Contemporary Art Lecturer - Prerona Prasad

Dr Prerona Prasad (DPhil, Oxford) is Curator of The Heong Gallery at Downing College, where she has organised and curated exhibitions by leading modern and contemporary artists including Ai Weiwei, Quentin Blake, Elisabeth Frink, Barbara Hepworth, David Hockney, Yoko Ono, Soheila Sokhanvari, and Gavin Turk.

She has over a decade of experience in museums and art galleries and is particularly interested in them as public spaces of encounter and discovery. She is passionate about contemporary art and enjoys nothing more than talking about art with students and visitors.

Students on her course will learn about how museums decide on their exhibition and collection strategies, and the global forces that are driving the making of art today.

Healthcare and Biotechnology Lecturer - Hasssan Rahmoune

Dr. Hassan Rahmoune (PhD) has over thirty years of significant scientific and management experience in biotechnology and healthcare, having worked in academic (University of Cambridge, UK), biotechnology (Rodaris, UK), and pharmaceutical (GlaxoSmithKline, UK) environments. Through the publication of more than 100 peer-reviewed articles, he has established a solid scientific foundation in a variety of therapeutic areas, including diabetes, cancer, respiratory, and neuropsychiatric diseases. More recently, research has focused on the discovery of novel cryoprotective agents for cell-based therapies (i.e., biopharmaceutical production and regenerative medicine).

As a senior researcher and technical officer at the University of Cambridge, he currently collaborates with multiple academic, clinical, and pharmaceutical partners. His primary responsibilities involve developing translational sciences in an academic setting, mentoring and co-supervising postdocs, as well as undergraduate and graduate students.

Prior to assuming his current academic role, he was leading the biomarker discovery group at GlaxoSmithKline's. As a member of the clinical matrix team, he also had the responsibility of introducing biomarkers and scientific rigour into preclinical and human/clinical studies to aid clinical development. 

History of Art Lecturer - Ingrid Dixon

Ingrid works as a freelance teacher, researcher, writer and translator. She has a qualification to teach English to speakers of other languages and gained both a Graduate Diploma in the History of Art and Architecture, and a Master’s degree in early Sienese and Florentine art from the Courtauld Institute, University of London. Much of her research has focused on the Italian art collection of George Edmund Street, a Victorian architect, who was a contemporary and associate of members of the pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and designer of the Law Courts in London. Her research into an altarpiece placed by Street in his final church design has been published in Italy. She has recently published a biography of one of the first German war brides to arrive in Britain after the Second World War.

Ingrid has been teaching and developing courses in English language, art history and British culture to Japanese students at Downing since 2004. She very much enjoys working with students of different nationalities, supporting them in their English language learning, and exploring with them the history of Cambridge and the wider narrative of art in Britain from the sixteenth century onwards.

International Management Lecturer - Lidia Mishchenko

Dr. Lidia Mishchenko is a Teaching Associate at the University of Cambridge Judge Business School, with lecturing responsibilities for the MPhil in Management, Executive MBA, and MSt in Entrepreneurship programmes. Lidia is a member of the British Accounting and Finance Association, the Academy of Management, and a fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Lidia’s is a multidisciplinary researcher focusing on the controversies of digital innovation adoption and the transition to sustainable business practices. She has collaborated with governmental authorities, including HM Revenue & Customs, Companies House, and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, to foster the development of new financial disclosure policies.

To bridge the gap between research and action, Lidia has engaged in educational initiatives that promote sustainable practices and foster awareness of climate risk. These initiatives include Executive Education programmes at Cambridge Judge Business School and Stanford Graduate School of Business, focusing on sustainability strategies.

One of Lidia’s lifelong interests is making education more accessible. This has manifested in her project to develop a new outreach programme at Downing College and her work with the Brilliant Club charity to support less advantaged students in accessing the most competitive universities.

Alongside her academic experience, Lidia has worked in consultancy at PwC, specialising in audit. Outside work, Lidia enjoys playing competitively in the England National Volleyball League and learning to sail.

International Relations Lecturer - Peter Dixon

Dr Peter Dixon has been a military officer, a peacebuilding practitioner and an International Relations academic. During his first career, in the Royal Air Force, he served as a transport pilot, trained student pilots and taught military doctrine at the United States Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs. In his final two tours of duty, he served at the Royal College of Defence Studies, London, and contributed in the German Ministry of Defence, Berlin, to the formulation of German defence and foreign policy in the arms control arena.

After leaving the RAF, he led a British peacebuilding NGO for over a decade, focusing on inclusive Track 1.5 dialogue processes, predominantly in Sudan and South Sudan.

Currently, he serves as Course Director for ICE’s Undergraduate Diploma in International Relations. His PhD thesis examines barriers to cooperation between external interventions in civil wars, and he has written three books on WW2 undercover operations, as well as chapters in scholarly books on war and peace.