Hi all,
Just in case anyone else has run into this (or a similar) problem:
This issue was resolved when I updated the version of hugo-academic (Home page of hugo academic is gone) and Hugo (https://alison.rbind.io/post/2019-03-04-hugo-troubleshooting/).
I also had to update the version of Hugo on netlify by editing the 'Environment variables' under the 'Continuous Deployment' tab.
I found these slides very helpful in navigating it all: https://summer-of-blogdown.netlify.app/.