A Conversation with Octavia Cade
— by Arley Sorg —
New Zealand author Octavia Cade had always planned to be a scientist when she grew up. “But as much as I love science, scientific writing sucked all my enthusiasm out. It’s the worst. It’s boring and inaccessible and scientists have no right to whine about people misunderstanding science when they have done everything they can to keep them from it.” Cade studied botany as an undergrad, and “became fascinated with algae and the intertidal zone.” She earned her master’s in biology, looking at reproductive strategies of a native seagrass, and her PhD in science communication at the University of Otago, “the biggest scicomm center in the world . . . and it’s a fantastic place to study.”