Katharine Ott

Katharine A. "Katy" Ott is an American mathematician specializing in harmonic analysis and partial differential equations, and known for her advocacy of women in mathematics. She is a professor of mathematics at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, where she chairs the Department of Mathematics.^[1]

Education and career

Ott is originally from Cumberland, Maine.^[2] She was an undergraduate at Middlebury College, graduating in 2003. She went to the University of Virginia for graduate study in mathematics, received a master's degree there in 2005, and completed her Ph.D. in 2008.^[3] Her doctoral dissertation, Boundary Integral Equations in Non-Smooth Domains, was supervised by Irina Mitrea.^[4]

After postdoctoral research at the University of Kentucky, she continued at the University of Kentucky as an assistant professor beginning in 2011.^[3] At the University of Kentucky, she organized the Sonia Kovalevsky Day program of activities for female secondary school students and their teachers.^[5] In 2014 she moved to Bates College;^[2] she was tenured there as an associate professor in 2018 and promoted to full professor in 2024.^[3]

Recognition

For her work organizing the Sonia Kovalevsky Day program, Ott received the 2014 National Service Award of the Association for Women in Mathematics.^[5] She was named a Fellow of the Association for Women in Mathematics in 2024, "for immense dedication to outreach to girls and women, including directing GirlsGetMath at ICERM; supporting AWM through committees, grant-writing, the newsletter, and AWM’s USA Science and Engineering Festival booth; and leading award-winning tutoring and volunteering initiatives in Maine".^[6]

Bates College gave Ott the 2023 Kroepsch Award for Excellence in Teaching, the highest teaching award of the college.^[7]