Scott Doney is the inaugural Joe D. and Helen J. Kington Professor in Environmental Change in the Department of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia. His research spans oceanography, climate science, and biogeochemistry, combining field data, satellite remote sensing, and numerical models to address how the global carbon cycle and marine ecosystems respond to climate change. He has advanced understanding of how fossil-fuel carbon dioxide uptake drives ocean acidification.

Doney served as the assistant director for ocean climate science and policy in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. He has authored numerous peer-reviewed research publications and is co-author of a graduate-level textbook, Modeling Methods for Marine Science. In 2025, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.