Susannah Scott is a Distinguished Professor in both Chemical Engineering and in Chemistry & Biochemistry at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She received her Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry from Iowa State University, for her work on the activation of O2 and transition metal-catalyzed oxidation mechanisms. She was awarded a NATO Postdoctoral Fellowship for work at the Institut de recherches sur la catalyse (CNRS) in Lyon, France. 

In 1994, she joined the faculty of the University of Ottawa (Canada), where she was named a Canada Research Chair. In 2003, she moved to the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she currently holds the Duncan and Suzanne Mellichamp Chair in Sustainable Catalysis and is Chair of the Santa Barbara Division of the University of California’s Academic Senate. She is an Executive Editor for ACS Catalysis, and a member of the Board of Reviewing Editors for Science. 

Her research interests include the design of heterogeneous catalysts with well-defined active sites for the conversion of conventional and unconventional carbon-based feedstocks, including the use of renewable and recycled carbon.