Rate My Professor Scott Doney

Scott Doney is the Joe D. and Helen J. Kington Professor in Environmental Change in the Department of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia. He earned a B.A. in chemistry from the University of California, San Diego in 1986 and a Ph.D. in chemical oceanography from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program in Oceanography in 1991. After his Ph.D., he was a postdoctoral fellow and scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. In 2002, he joined Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution as a scientist, where he later served as Director of the Ocean and Climate Change Institute and Chair of the Department of Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry. He assumed his current position at the University of Virginia in August 2017.

Doney's research expertise encompasses oceanography, climate, and biogeochemistry, employing numerical models, remote sensing, and data analysis to investigate responses of the global carbon cycle and ocean ecosystems to climate change factors such as ocean warming, sea-ice loss, and ocean acidification from fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions. He has produced over 380 peer-reviewed publications, including highly influential papers like "Anthropogenic ocean acidification over the twenty-first century and its impact on calcifying organisms" (2005), "Ocean Acidification: The Other CO2 Problem" (2009), and "Oceanic vertical mixing: A review and a model with a nonlocal boundary layer parameterization" (1994). He co-authored the textbook "Modeling Methods for Marine Science" (2011). Doney chaired the U.S. Ocean Carbon and Biogeochemistry Program, was a convening lead author for the Oceans and Marine Resources chapter of the 2014 U.S. National Climate Assessment, contributed to National Academy of Sciences reports, and served on NSF advisory committees. He has testified before the U.S. Congress on ocean acidification and is a frequent media source on climate change. His honors include the American Geophysical Union James B. Macelwane Medal (2000), Huntsman Award for Excellence in Marine Science (2013), fellowships from AGU (2000), Aldo Leopold Leadership Program (2004), AAAS (2010), and ASLO (2021), election to the National Academy of Sciences (2025), the SCHEV Outstanding Faculty Award (2026), and a University of Virginia Distinguished Research Award.