Scott completed his undergraduate studies at Columbia University, earning a B.S. in Electrical Engineering. During graduate school, he worked as a member of the Analog VLSI and Biological Systems Group at MIT, earning his S.M. and Ph.D. degrees, also both in Electrical Engineering. His doctoral research developed new circuits for energy-efficient wireless neural stimulation. His postdoctoral work in the Synthetic Neurobiology group focused on developing circuits for neural signal amplification and acquisition. After finishing his work in the lab, he then moved on to become a senior engineer at Advanced Bionics.