Scott grew up in the suburbs of Buffalo, NY, where his interests in science, particularly chemistry, were forged by a variety of experiences including an opportunity in high school to attend the United States National Study Camp for the International Chemistry Olympiad. Scott pursued his undergraduate studies at Williams College in Williamstown, MA where he graduated as valedictorian, and in 1999 began his graduate studies with Professor K. C. Nicolaou at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA. During the next five years, Scott was fully funded by graduate fellowships from the National Science Foundation, Pfizer, and Bristol-Myers Squibb, and in addition to his benchwork he also co-authored the advanced text Classics in Total Synthesis II (Wiley-VCH). He was then an NIH postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University with Prof. E. J. Corey before starting his independent career at Columbia University in 2006. After being promoted to Associate Professor of Chemistry in June of 2011, Scott moved to Jupiter, FL campus of The Scripps Research Institute in September of 2013 as an Associate Professor of Chemistry, and was recruited by the University of Chicago as a Full Professor in September of 2015.

His research interests are devoted to the synthesis of complex natural products, particularly those of the terpene, polyphenol, and alkaloid classes, seeking to identify new strategies and tactics of broad significance. Particular emphasis has been placed on dimeric and higher-order natural products of these classes. In addition, Scott and his group have developed a unique group of halogenating reagents that are used in both academia and industry, with one sold by Sigma-Aldrich to create natural and designed compounds.

Overall, Scott has trained more than 70 scientists in his laboratory from the high school through postdoctoral levels, and has delivered more than 175 lectures to date worldwide. He is dedicated to chemical education in its broadest sense as denoted by a Cottrell Scholar Award from the Research Corporation for Science Advancement (2009). Scott is also helping to shape the face of undergraduate education worldwide as co-author (with T. W. G. Solomons and C. B. Fryhle) of the 11th and 12th editions of Organic Chemistry (Wiley). Scott has also edited a set of volumes on domino chemistry that was just published by Thieme, and finally, Scott has also co-authored, with P. J. Beuning and D. Z. Besson, a book on teaching and mentoring in science entitled Teach Better, Save Time, and Have More Fun.

Selected awards and honors

• Visiting Professor, IIT–Bombay, 2019
• Swiss Chemical Society Lectureship, 2018
• Llewellyn John and Harriet Manchester Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, University of Chicago, 2017
• The Chemical Record Lectureship, 2013
• Amgen Young Investigator Award, 2012
• Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award from the American Chemical Society, 2011
• DuPont Young Professor Award, 2011
• Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellowship, 2010
• Bristol-Myers Squibb Grant in Synthetic Organic Chemistry, 2010
• Eli Lilly Grantee Award, 2009
• Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Fellowship, 2009
• Cottrell Scholar Award from the Research Corporation, 2009
• Columbia University Presidential Teaching Award, 2009
• NSF CAREER Award, 2009
• Synthesis/Synlett Journal Award, 2008
• Camille and Henry Dreyfus New Faculty Award, 2006
• Eli Lilly New Faculty Award, 2006
• Amgen New Faculty Award, 2006

Named/Plenary/Keynote/Award

1. Hart Symposium, The Ohio State University, Department of Chemistry, Columbus, OH (October 2019)
2. 2nd International Symposium on Frontiers of Natural and Biomimetic Drugs, Beijing, China (October 2018)
3. Swiss Chemical Society – Syngenta Symposium 2017, Stein, Switzerland (October 2017)
4. Abbvie Scholars Symposium, Chicago, IL (July 2017)
5. 3rd International Symposium on Natural Product Synthesis and Process Methods for Drug Manufacture (October 2016)
6. 2016 Gregynog Synthesis Workshop, Gregynog, Scotland (September 2016)
7. 2nd EOC Conference on the Efficient Chemical Synthesis of Complex Molecules, Nankai University, Tianjin, China (July 2015)
8. Bristol Synthesis Symposium, Bristol, England (April 2015)
9. Organic Division of the French Chemical Society Spring Meeting, Paris, France (March 2015)
10. ACS/SACI Binational Organic Chemistry Conference/Frank Warren Conference, Stellenbosch, South Africa (December 2014)
11. IUPAC 28th International Symposium on the Chemistry of Natural Products/8th International Conference on Biodiversity, Shanghai, China (October 2014)
12. 1st Aldrich Lectureship, Rice University, Department of Chemistry, Houston, TX (April 2014)
13. The 2014 Chemical Record Lectureship, Nagoya, Japan (March 2014)
14. 2nd Torkil Holm Symposium, Copenhagen, Denmark (January 2014)
15. Armenian Chemistry Frontiers Symposium, Yerevan, Armenia (August 2013)
16. ICIQ Summer School, Tarragona, Spain (July 2013)
17. International Conference on Natural Products Chemistry, Chongqing, China (September 2012)
18. International Conference on Functional Molecules in Nature, Nanjing, China (September 2012)
19. 26th International Conference on Polyphenols, Florence, Italy (July 2012)
20. 13th Belgian Organic Synthesis Symposium (BOSS), Leuven, Belgium (July 2012)
21. 3rd International Symposium on Organic Synthesis and Drug Design, Changzhou, China (May 2012)
22. Eli Lilly Lectureship, Northwestern University, Department of Chemistry, Evanston, IL (February 2012)
23. 1st Aldrich Lectureship, University of California – Berkeley, Department of Chemistry, Berkeley, CA (October 2011)
24. 4th International Symposium on Advances in Synthetic and Medicinal Chemistry, St. Petersburg, Russia (August 2011)
25. The International Symposium on Physical Organic Chemistry and Synthetic Materials, Nankai University, Beijing, China (July 2011)
26. 7th Sino-US Symposium on Organic Chemistry, Guizhou University, Guiyang, China (June 2011)
27. University of Pennsylvania, Department of Chemistry, Franklin Medal Award Symposium, Philadelphia, PA (April 2011)
28. 10th Anglo-Norman Organic Chemistry Symposium, University of Southampton, Southampton, England (April 2010)
29. ACS Award in Pure Chemistry Symposium in honor of Prof. Phil S. Baran, ACS National Meeting, San Francisco, CA (March 2010)
30. 21st Frontiers in Chemistry Symposium, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA (February 2010)
31. 6th Hirata Memorial Lecture Symposium, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan (January 2010)
32. 34th RACI Symposium, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia (December 2009)
33. 30th RACI Symposium, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia (December 2009)
34. 4th Banff Symposium on Organic Chemistry, Banff, Canada (October 2009; student invited talk)
35. 22nd Organic Chemistry Day Symposium, University of Missouri-Columbia, St. Louis, MO (April 2009)
36. 3rd Annual NESACS/RSC/IUPAC Advances in Chemical Sciences Symposium, Cambridge, MA (April 2009)
37. 6th Novartis Lectureship, Boston University, Department of Chemistry, Boston, MA (February 2009)
38. Sino-American Symposium on Organic Synthesis and Drug Development, Xuzhou Normal University, Xuzhou, China (October 2008)
39. Kalypsys Lectureship, Young Investigators in Natural Product Synthesis, Western Regional ACS Meeting, San Diego, CA (October 2007)

Invited Lectures

1. CSIR-IICT, Department of Chemistry, Hyderabad, India (December 2019)
2. ChemVeda, Hyderabad, India (December 2019)
3. Syngenta, Goa, India (December 2019)
4. PI Industries, Udaipur, India (December 2019)
5. 20th National Organic Symposium Trust Conference, Udaipur, India (December 2019)
6. IIT–Bombay, Department of Chemistry, Mumbai, India (December 2019)
7. Loyola University, Department of Chemistry, Chicago, IL (November 2019)
8. Incyte Pharmaceuticals, Medicinal Chemistry Division, Wilmington, DE (October 2019)
9. Verde Valley School, Verde Valley Ideas Symposium, Sedona, AZ (September 2019)
10. Lanzhou University, Department of Chemistry, Lanzhou, China (July 2019)
11. Columbia University, Department of Pharmacology, New York, NY (June 2019)
12. Tianjin University, Department of Chemistry, Tianjin, China (October 2018)
13. Syngenta, Department of Chemistry, Stein, Switzerland (September 2018)
14. University of Zurich, Swiss Chemical Society Lectureship, Department of Chemistry, Zurich, Switzerland (September 2018)
15. University of Geneva, Swiss Chemical Society Lectureship, Department of Chemistry, Geneva, Switzerland (September 2018)
16. University of Bern, Swiss Chemical Society Lectureship, Department of Chemistry, Bern, Switzerland (September 2018)
17. University of Fribourg, Swiss Chemical Society Lectureship, Department of Chemistry, Fribourg, Switzerland (September 2018)
18. EPFL, Swiss Chemical Society Lectureship, Department of Chemistry, Lausanne, Switzerland (September 2018)
19. University of Basel, Swiss Chemical Society Lectureship, Department of Chemistry, Basel, Switzerland (September 2018)
20. Shaanxi Normal University, Department of Chemistry, Xi’an, China (August 2018)
21. ChemVeda, Hyderabad, India (August 2018)
22. SuChem 2018, Sustainable Chemistry for Health, Environment, and Materials, CSIR-IICT Hyderabad, India (August 2018)
23. Illinois Institute of Technology, Department of Chemistry, Chicago, IL (April 2018)
24. E. J. Corey 90th Birthday Symposium, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Princeton, NJ (April 2018)
25. University of Nagoya, Department of Chemistry, Nagoya, Japan (February 2018)
26. University of Tokyo, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tokyo, Japan (February 2018)
27. Chiba University, Department of Chemistry, Chiba, Japan (February 2018)
28. University of Alberta, Department of Chemistry, Edmonton, Canada (September 2017)
29. Northwest University, Department of Chemistry and Materials Science, Xi’an, China (July 2017)
30. Lanzhou University, Cuiying Honors College, Lanzhou, China (July 2017)
31. Sichuan University, State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy and Cancer Treatment, Chengdu, China (July 2017)
32. Eli Lilly and Company, Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Indianapolis, IN (May 2017)
33. Purdue University, Department of Chemistry, Purdue, IN (April 2017)
34. Gilead/University of Washington, Department of Chemistry, Seattle, Washington(March 2017)
35. Vanderbilt University Chemical Biology Program, Nashville, TN (February 2017)
36. 21st International Conference on Organic Synthesis, IIT Bombay (December 2016)
37. International Symposium of Ingrated Synthesis–10 (ISONIS-10), Awaji Island, Japan (November 2016)
38. Chubu University, Department of Chemistry, Nagoya, Japan (November 2016)
39. Waseda University, Department of Chemistry, Tokyo, Japan (November 2016)
40. Tohoku University, Department of Chemistry, Sendai, Japan (November 2016)
41. K. C. Nicolaou 70th Birthday Symposium, Rice University, Department of Chemistry (October 2016)
42. Chicago Organic Symposium, Chicago, IL (October 2016)
43. Chemical Biology Summer School, Villars, Switzerland (August 2016)
44. ACS-SERM Symposium on the Organic Synthesis of Bioactive Molecules, Cincinnati, OH (May 2016)
45. Albert I. Meyers Symposium, Colorado State University, Boulder, CO (May 2016)
46. CBI Mini-Symposium, University of Chicago (April 2016)
47. Pacifichem, Molecular Function of Natural Products Symposium, Honolulu, HI (December 2015)
48. Brigham Young University, Department of Chemistry, Provo, UT (November 2015)
49. 5th International Symposium on Organic Synthesis and Drug Design, Nanjing, China (October 2015)
50. Xi’an Jiantong University – Frontier Institute of Science and Technology, Xi’an, China (October 2015)
51. Lanzhou University, Department of Chemistry, Lanzhou, China (October 2015)
52. South University of Science and Technology of China – Shenzhen, China (October 2015)
53. ACS Florida Area Meeting and Exposition – Tampa, FL (April 2015)
54. University of Colorado – Boulder, Department of Chemistry, Boulder, CO (April 2015)
55. Syngenta, Department of Chemistry, Jealott’s Hill, England (April 2015)
56. AstraZeneca, Discovery Chemistry, Macclesfield, England (April 2015)
57. University of Lyon, Department of Chemistry, Lyon, France (March 2015)
58. University of Bordeaux, Department of Chemistry, Bordeaux, France (March 2015)
59. Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Institute Seminar Series, New York, NY (March 2015)
60. Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, Shanghai, China (January 2015)
61. University of Chicago, Department of Chemistry, Chicago, IL (December 2014)
62. University of Cape Town, Department of Chemistry, Cape Town, South Africa (December 2014)
63. Rice University, Department of Chemistry, Houston, TX (November 2014)
64. St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Institute Seminar Series, Memphis, TN (November 2014)
65. Trinity College Dublin, Werner Chemical Society, Dublin, Ireland (November 2014, student-invited talk)
66. East China University of Science and Technology, Department of Chemistry, Shanghai, China (October 2014)
67. Kunming Institute of Botany, Department of Chemistry, Kunming, China (October 2014)
68. University of Montreal, Department of Chemistry, Montreal, Canada (October 2014)
69. University of Pittsburgh, Department of Chemistry, Pittsburgh, PA (September 2014)
70. Florida Atlantic University, Department of Chemistry, Boca Raton, FL (September 2014)
71. 5th European Workshop in Drug Synthesis, Siena, Italy (May 2014)
72. Boehringer-Ingelheim, Process Chemistry, Ridgefield, CT (April 2014)
73. Eisai, Discovery Chemistry, Tsukuba, Japan (March 2014)
74. Teijin Pharma, Discovery Chemistry, Tokyo, Japan (March 2014)
75. SUNY – Stony Brook, Department of Chemistry, Stony Brook, NY (February 2014)
76. Lundbeck, Discovery Chemistry, Copenhagen, Denmark (January 2014)
77. 24th International Society for Heterocyclic Chemistry Conference, Shanghai, China (September 2013)
78. Sanofi-Aventis, Disovery Chemistry, Frankfurt, Germany (August 2013)
79. Celgene, Discovery Chemistry, San Diego, CA (August 2013)
80. Gordon Research Conference on Natural Products (July 2013)
81. Council for Chemical Research Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (May 2013)
82. Institute for Chemical Synthesis and Biological Chemistry, Nanjing, China (March 2013)
83. Texas A & M University, Department of Chemistry, College Station, TX (February 2013)
84. The Scripps Research Institute, Jupiter, FL (January 2013)
85. Abbott Laboratories, Process Chemistry Department, Chicago, IL (January 2013)
86. ACS North Jersey Section, Award Symposium honoring K. C. Nicolaou for his 2012 Award for Creativity in Molecular Design and Synthesis, New Brunswick, NJ (November 2012)
87. University of Helsinki, Department of Chemistry, Helsinki, Finland (November 2012)
88. University of California – Santa Barbara, Department of Chemistry (October 2012)
89. Amgen Young Investigators Symposium, Thousand Oaks, CA (October 2012)
90. Michigan State University, Department of Chemistry, East Lansing, MI (October 2012)
91. Nanjing University, Department of Chemistry Nanjing, China (September 2012)
92. Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award Symposium, ACS National Meeting, Philadelphia, PA (August 2012)
93. International Chirality Conference, Dallas, TX (June 2012)
94. Suzhou University, Department of Chemistry, Suzhou, China (May 2012)
95. University of Science and Technology of China, Department of Chemistry, Hefei, China (May 2012)
96. Bristol-Myers Squibb Grantee Symposium, Lawrenceville, NJ (April 2012)
97. Colby College, Department of Chemistry, Waterville, ME (April 2012)
98. Eli Lilly and Company, Biennial Grantee Symposium, Indianapolis, IN (March 2012)
99. Iowa State University, Department of Chemistry, Ames, IA (January 2012)
100. AstraZeneca, Discovery Chemistry, Waltham, MA (January 2012)
101. University of Indiana – Bloomington, Department of Chemistry, Bloomington, IN (November 2011)
102. University of Toronto, Department of Chemistry, Student Invited Speaker, Toronto, Canada (October 2011)
103. Columbia University, Department of Chemistry, New York, NY (December 2011)
104. Queen’s College, Department of Chemistry, New York, NY (November 2011)
105. University of California – Irvine, Department of Chemistry, Irvine, CA (October 2011)
106. Princeton University, Department of Chemistry, Princeton, NJ (October 2011)
107. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Chemistry, Cambridge, MA (September 2011)
108. Pfizer, Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Groton, CT (September 2011)
109. AstraZeneca, Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Mölndal, Sweden (August 2011)
110. University of Minnesota, Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Minneapolis, MN (July 2011)
111. Biodura, Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Beijing, China (June 2011)
112. Stanford University, Department of Chemistry, Palo Alto, CA (June 2011)
113. University of California–Los Angeles, Department of Chemistry, Los Angeles, CA (May 2011)
114. California Institute of Technology, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Pasadena, CA (May 2011)
115. University of Southern California, Department of Chemistry, Los Angeles, CA (May 2011)
116. University of Illinois–Chicago, Department of Chemistry, Chicago, IL (May 2011)
117. Hoffman–LaRoche, Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Nutley, NJ (April 2011)
118. Georgia State University, Department of Chemistry, Atlanta, GA (April 2011)
119. Cornell University, Department of Chemistry, Ithaca, NY (March 2011)
120. Brandeis University, Department of Chemistry, Waltham, MA (February 2011)
121. Harvard University, Department of Chemistry, Woodward Lecture Series in Organic Chemistry, Cambridge, MA (February 2011)
122. New Jersey Biotechnology Consortium Symposium, Princeton, NJ (December 2010)
123. Bayer Pharmaceuticals, Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Wuppertal, Germany (November 2010)
124. University of Göttingen, Department of Chemistry, Göttingen, Germany (November 2010)
125. University of Strasbourg, Department of Chemistry, Strasbourg, France (November 2010)
126. University of Basel, Department of Chemistry, Basel, Switzerland (November 2010)
127. University of Zurich, Department of Chemistry, Zurich, Switzerland (November 2010)
128. Max Planck Institute–Mulheim, Department of Chemistry, Mulheim, Germany (November 2010)
129. ETH, Department of Chemistry, Zurich, Switzerland (November 2010)
130. University of California–San Diego, Department of Chemistry, San Diego, CA (November 2010)
131. University of Ottawa, Department of Chemistry, Ottawa, Canada (October 2010)
132. Colorado State University, Department of Chemistry, Boulder, CO (October 2010)
133. City College of New York, Department of Chemistry (October 2010)
134. University of Texas–Southwestern Medical Center, Department of Chemistry, Dallas, TX (September 2010)
135. Chinese University of Hong Kong, Department of Chemistry, Hong Kong, China (August 2010)
136. Peking University at Shenzhen, Department of Chemistry, Shenzhen, China (August 2010)
137. University of Hong Kong, Department of Chemistry, Hong Kong, China (August 2010)
138. ChemPartner, Chemical Discovery Group, Shanghai, China (August 2010)
139. East China Normal University, Department of Chemistry, Shanghai, China (August 2010)
140. China Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research, Shanghai, China (August 2010)
141. Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, Shanghai, China (August 2010)
142. WuXi AppTec, Shanghai, China (August 2010)
143. University of Delaware, Department of Chemistry, Newark, DE (June 2010)
144. DuPont, Crop Sciences Department, Wilmington, DE (June 2010)
145. ACS New England Regional Meeting, Cope Scholar Symposium in honor of Prof. John Porco, Potsdam, NY (June 2010)
146. GlaxoSmithKline, Discovery Chemistry, Research Triangle Park, Raleigh, NC (June 2010)
147. Hunter College, Department of Chemistry, New York, NY (April 2010)
148. Merck Research Laboratories, Process Chemistry, Rahway, NJ (March 2010)
149. West Virginia University, Department of Chemistry, Morgantown, WV (February 2010)
150. Waseda University, Department of Chemistry, Tokyo, Japan (January 2010)
151. Osaka University–Toyonaka Campus, Department of Chemistry, Osaka, Japan (January 2010)
152. Osaka University–Suita Campus, Department of Chemistry, Osaka, Japan (January 2010)
153. Kyoto University, Department of Chemistry, Kyoto, Japan (January 2010)
154. Tohoku University, Department of Chemistry, Sendai, Japan (January 2010)
155. Tokyo University of Science, Tokyo, Japan (January 2010)
156. RIKEN, Tokyo, Japan (January 2010)
157. University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Science, Tokyo, Japan (January 2010)
158. National Institutes of Health, Chemical Interest Group, Bethesda, MD (December 2009)
159. Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organization (CSIRO), Melbourne, Australia (December 2009)
160. Australian National University, Canberra, Australia (December 2009)
161. University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign, Department of Chemistry, Urbana, IL (November 2009)
162. University of Kansas, Department of Chemistry, Lawrence, KS (November 2009)
163. Yale University, Department of Chemistry, New Haven, CT (October 2009)
164. Swarthmore College, Department of Chemistry, Swarthmore, PA (October 2009)
165. The College of William and Mary, Department of Chemistry, Williamsburg, VA (October 2009)
166. Vitae Pharmaceuticals, Discovery Chemistry, Fort Washington, PA (October 2009)
167. Vanderbilt University, Department of Chemistry, Nashville, TN (September 2009)
168. University of Alabama–Tuscaloosa, Department of Chemistry, Tuscaloosa, AL (September 2009)
169. GlaxoSmithKline, Discovery Chemistry, Collegeville, PA (July 2009)
170. GlaxoSmithKline, Process Chemistry, King of Prussia, PA (July 2009)
171. Gordon Research Conference on Organic Reactions and Processes, Providence, RI (July 2009)
172. Eli Lilly and Company, Discovery and Process Chemistry, Indianapolis, IN (June 2009)
173. Gordon Research Conference on Combinatorial Chemistry: High Throughput Chemistry and Chemical Biology, New London, NH (June 2009)
174. Merck Research Laboratories, Discovery Chemistry, West Point, PA (May 2009)
175. Bristol-Myers Squibb, Discovery Chemistry, Lawrenceville, NJ (April 2009)
176. Bristol-Myers Squibb, Process Chemistry, New Brunswick, NJ (April 2009)
177. University of Texas–Arlington, Department of Chemistry, Arlington, TX (April 2009)
178. Texas Tech University, Department of Chemistry, Lubbock, TX (April 2009)
179. Bristol-Myers Squibb, Discovery Chemistry, Wallingford, CT (March 2009)
180. University of Chicago, Department of Chemistry, Chicago, IL (March 2009)
181. Schering-Plough, Department of Chemical Research, Kenilworth, NJ (March 2009)
182. American Association for Cancer Research-American Chemical Society National Meeting, New Orleans, LA (February 2009)
183. University of New Mexico, Department of Chemistry, Albuquerque, NM (December 2008)
184. Emory University, Department of Chemistry, Atlanta, GA (October 2008)
185. Peking University, Department of Chemistry, Beijing, China (October 2008)
186. National Tsinghua University, Department of Chemistry, Beijing, China (October 2008)
187. Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, Shanghai, China (October 2008)
188. Zhejiang University, Department of Chemistry, Hangzhou, China (October 2008)
189. International Symposium on Organic Synthesis and Drug Discovery, Nanjing, China (October 2008)
190. Rutgers University, Department of Chemistry, New Brunswick, NJ (September 2008)
191. Gordon Research Conference on Natural Products, Tilton, NH (July 2008)
192. NSF Synthesis Workshop, Holderness, NH (June 2008)
193. Merck Research Laboratories-IRBM, Pomezia, Italy (May 2008)
194. University of Rome “La Sapienza,” Rome, Italy (May 2008)
195. ESF-COST High-Level International Conference on Natural Products: Chemistry, Biology, and Medicine, Acquafredda di Maratea, Italy (May 2008)
196. Brock University, Department of Chemistry, St. Catherines, Canada (September 2007)