Catherine Elizabeth Jane Arnold, OBE (born 10 November 1978) is a British academic administrator and former diplomat.

She then studied religious conflict at the University of Nottingham, graduating with a Master of Arts (MA) degree.

[2] She then worked in the Political, Press & Public Affairs office in Muscat, Oman (2007–2008) and in Baghdad, Iraq (2008).

[1] In 2013, she returned to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London where she had been appointed Head of its Emerging Powers Initiative.

[5] By March 2020, the college was subject to lockdown owing to the COVID-19 pandemic and, since it caters entirely to mature and graduate students, many of whom had no other home to which to travel safely, she unexpectedly found she was (for a short spell) head of the largest Cambridge college, based on numbers of students living onsite.