Nino O’Shea-Nejad leads OxPrep’s academic vision and pedagogical approach, specialising in the development of high-level reasoning, intellectual rigour, and performance under pressure. His work focuses on how academically strong students think and respond when challenged, and how these capabilities can be trained systematically. Nino’s expertise lies in the pedagogy of expert performance: diagnosing reasoning, identifying failure modes under scrutiny, and building robustness in demanding academic contexts.

Nino completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Cambridge, following a uniquely broad academic pathway across Philosophy, Psychology, and Natural Sciences, developing fluency across both humanities and sciences. He successfully navigated the Cambridge admissions process three times for three different subjects, ranking top of the university in each and receiving seven academic awards. To gain comparative insight into Oxbridge selection, he also undertook and was successful in the Oxford postgraduate admissions process. This repeated exposure provided first-hand insight into how elite selection operates across disciplines at both universities, and how intellectual depth is assessed in practice.

He went on to complete an MSc in Applied Biosciences and Biotechnology at Imperial College London, achieving distinction across examinations, laboratory research, and dissertation work. He later undertook an MSc in Clinical Psychotherapy at King’s College London, again maintaining distinction-level performance. This combination added a rigorous applied understanding of cognition, judgement, and human behaviour, complementing his academic training with clinically grounded insight into how individuals think and perform under pressure.

Alongside his academic training, Nino has accumulated thousands of hours of intensive teaching and mentoring, primarily in one-to-one and small-group settings with academically ambitious students. This work has focused on developing clarity of thought, reasoning under pressure, and intellectual resilience rather than rote content delivery. Operating in high-stakes admissions contexts, his pedagogy is characterised by diagnostic questioning, rapid feedback, and real-time modelling of expert thinking.

Nino’s pedagogical expertise is further informed by his work across schools and leading tutoring organisations, where he has acted as an Oxbridge consultant and led admissions support at cohort, class, and individual levels. A British Council–accredited University Counsellor, he has guided hundreds of applicants through competitive selection processes, developing a detailed understanding of how candidates are assessed in practice. A distinctive feature of his work has been a willingness to align incentives with outcomes, including offering no-win-no-fee arrangements for Oxbridge applicants, reflecting confidence in his methods.

In parallel with teaching and admissions work, Nino remains actively engaged in research and academic practice across diverse fields including psychology and mental health, animal physiology, linguistics, and educational policy. His contributions have been recognised by the Royal Society for Public Health, the Royal Society of Biology, and the Chartered Institute of Linguists. This ongoing engagement keeps him close to contemporary academic culture and to the forms of inquiry and intellectual seriousness that institutions such as Oxford and Cambridge value most. Research informs his pedagogy directly, ensuring that OxPrep’s methods remain evidence-led and current rather than anecdotal.

At OxPrep, Nino is responsible for the academic and pedagogical core of the organisation’s work. He designs interview frameworks, defines assessment criteria, and develops personalised preparation systems that adapt to individual students while maintaining consistent standards. By grounding preparation in academic excellence, admissions reality, and sustained teaching practice, he ensures that OxPrep helps students develop the intellectual clarity, confidence, and resilience required to perform at the highest level of Oxbridge selection.