Billy Badger, born 1961 in Coleraine, Northern Ireland, first studied Mathematics at the University of Tasmania, gaining a Bachelor of Education in 1982. From 1991-1993 he lived in Bonn, Germany, returning to Tasmania, where he completed a Graduate Diploma in Modern Languages in 1995, a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in 1997 and a PhD in 2002. He is currently Convenor of German at Massey University in New Zealand.