Dr. Kada was born in Saitama Prefecture in 1950.  She was drawn in by the lure of agriculture and nature under the influence of her peasantist mother. Being impressed during junior-high and high school trips to Mt. Hiei and Lake Biwa, she moved to the Kansai Region, in the west part of Japan. When she was a student at Kyoto University, she became to have interest in the co-existence of water and humans on a global scale through exploration in Africa questing for the origin of mankind.  After studying at the graduate school of The University of Wisconsin-Madison, she started her career as a researcher at the Lake Biwa Research Institute, and launched environmental sociological research in rice paddies and villages around Lake Biwa. In the 1980s, she advocated “life environmentalism” with sociologists and anthropologists.  She was awarded her Ph.D. degree in agriculture from Kyoto University in 1985.  In the 1990s, she proposed the establishment of the Lake Biwa Museum, and had been involved in its establishment, design and operation.  After she served as Professor at Kyoto Seika University, she challenged in the 2006 gubernatorial election to make the best use of her academic achievements in politics, and was elected as the 5th woman Governor in Japan. She developed new key policies including “Lake Biwa Environmental Policies,” “Child-raising and Women Participation,” “Regional Employment and Activation,” the “Graduation from Dams – Watershed Management Policy” and the “Graduation from Nuclear Power Plants Policy.” She received an honorable retirement from the position of Governor of Shiga Prefecture in July 2014. Now she serves as President of Biwako Seikei Sport College, and has been engaged in nurturing youth and establishing a society where multigenerational people live happily together through regenerating water culture and the environment in Shiga Prefecture.

Her major books include: “Inochi ni kodawaru seiji wo shiyo!” (in Japanese, Politics Valuing Lives)(Fubaisya, 2013), “Chiji wa nani ga dekirunoka – Nihon-byo no chiryo wa chiiki kara” (in Japanese, What the Governor Can Do – Recovery from Japan Disease by Local Efforts)(Fubaisya, 2012),  “Seikatsu-kankyo-shugi de iko! – Biwako ni koishita chiji” (in Japanese, Go Along with Life Environmentalism – The Governor Who Fell in Love with Lake Biwa)(Iwanami Junior Book, 2008), “Mizu wo meguru hito to shizen” (in Japanese, Humans and Nature Around Water – from Field Sited of Japan and Abroad)(Yuhikaku, 2003), “Kankyo-shakaigaku” (in Japanese, Environmental Sociology)(Iwanami Shoten, 2002), “Mizubegurashi no kankyogaku, Biwako to sekai no mizuumi kara” (in Japanese, Lifestyle Environmentology of Waterfronts – from Lake Biwa and World Lakes)(Showa-do, 2001).