History

In spring 2020, the world experienced a shutdown due to COVID-19. Academic conferences were all suddenly cancelled — including that year’s Southeastern Analysis Meeting (SEAM). In response, James Pascoe founded and organized The Online Operator Theory and Related Topics (2TART) conference and seminar series, which held a meeting in June 2020. There, Kelly Bickel gave an invited talk on the “leaky pipeline” within the operator theory community, highlighting that, for various reasons, the community is getting smaller and smaller over time. In direct response, Meredith Sargent posted the following in the 2TART Discord server:

Something @Doug and I have been talking about that might be nice would be to have a casual weekly/biweekly/monthly/whatever “kids table” get together for grad students/postdocs/junior folks (which senior people are of course welcome at) where we can talk about the various things we’ve been thinking about as well as how we’re getting to know the ropes of the PROCESS of writing and submitting papers. Not exactly mentoring, but a way to kind of build a cohort and support group. Would anyone be interested in something like that?

The response was massive, and the entire community supported the development of such a group. Four early-career mathematicians — Meredith Sargent, Douglas Pfeffer, Meric Augat, and Christopher Felder — got together to found Operator Theory Talks for Early Researchers (OTTER). The aim was clear: provide a support network for early-career operator theorists to help them navigate academia and eventually secure permanent positions from which they can continue to support others. Once the logo was designed (credit to Ron Taylor at Berry College, a colleague and friend of Doug’s) and the website and Discord were set up, OTTER was ready to launch. As soon as it was advertised, its mailing list grew to 100+ members, and dozens of academics joined the server every week. The first online talk was on October 7th, 2020, and the attendance was incredible. OTTER unknowingly helped connect early researchers on a global scale — many of its active participants were from Europe and India, as well as a host of other countries. OTTER would continue offering virtual talks, reading groups, problem-solving sessions, mock job interviews, and social venues for the next few years.

Eventually, as we moved into 2023, interest in online communities waned as the world had confidently recovered from the COVID shock. Many members of the community had secured permanent academic positions, and, importantly, its organizers found themselves unable to properly maintain the community alongside their newfound professional responsibilities. As a result, OTTER went dormant for a short while, until a new group of academics might assume the mantle and continue to foster OTTER’s success in providing a high-quality, high-impact community to those who need it most: early-career researchers.

In 2026, a new organizing team took up that mantle. The current team is on the About page, and the recordings from the original series live on in the talk archive.