- In February 2003, his wife was elected to the Minnesota State House of Representatives.
- Once edited a Shakespeare journal.
- Son of an immigrant.
- Trained in architecture. Designed and built his own house by hand over two years.
- His wife, former Minnesota State Rep. Rebecca Otto, is the 18th State Auditor of Minnesota. Otto took a year off to manage her campaign. As of 2017 she is in her third term, is the only Democrat ever re-elected to the post, and is running for Governor of Minnesota in 2018.
- Otto co-founded and was the CEO of ScienceDebate.org and was a spokesperson for the group in national and international television and radio. Its stated goal is to restore science to its rightful place in American political dialogue. It is supported by virtually all of the American science and academic community. Both Obama and McCain participated, and the initiative eventually made more than 800 million media impressions. President Obama's science policy was based on his answers to the "14 Top Science Questions Facing America" developed by the group under Otto's leadership, and Obama's cabinet appointments included several early supporters of the initiative. In 2012 Otto got Obama and Romney to participate, and in 2016 he convinced Trump, Clinton, Stein, and Johnson to answer the top 20 most important science and tech questions affecting Americans, from climate change to internet privacy to water to opioids.
- In 2008 he co-founded and ran ScienceDebate2008, the largest political initiative in the history of science, which got Obama and McCain to debate science and made 800 million media impressions.
- Otto is a leading American science and politics expert who helped organize and spoke at the March for Science in Washington, DC on Earth Day, 2017.
- Otto is a nonfiction author of two award-winning books on science and politics: The War on Science, and Fool Me Twice.
- Otto is also an award-winning novelist. His literary thriller Sins of Our Fathers, which deals with racism against Native Americans, was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize and won the NE MN Book Award.
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