Retired from National Park Service after more than 30 years of with the Department of the Interior, his last position was as Great Plains Team Leader, Park Programs, Midwest Archeological Center, U.S. National Park Service, Lincoln, NE. He has worked throughout the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain West on a variety of archeological projects. He has served as President of the Colorado Council of Professional Archeologists and the Nebraska Association of Professional Archeologists, and on the Board of Directors of the Society for Historical Archaeology and the Plains Anthropological Society. He was president of the Society for Historical Archaeology in 2006 and 2007. He specializes in nineteenth century military sites archeology and forensic archeology. He is particularly noted for his expertise in battlefield archeology and firearms identification having worked on more than 40 battlefield sites, including Palo Alto, Sand Creek, Big Hole, Bear Paw, Wilson’s Creek, Pea Ridge, Centralia, and Santiago de Cuba. He was awarded the Department of the Interior's Distinguished Service Award in 2002 for his innovative research in battlefield archeology that started with his work at the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument.

Dr. Scott has also been involved with human rights and forensic investigations since the early 1990s. He has worked with the United Nations and various human rights organizations in El Salvador, Croatia, Rwanda, Cyprus, and Iraq. He testified as an expert witness in Saddam Hussein’s Anfal Campaign Trial in December 2006 using battlefield modeling to show that the events under investigation were not combat related deaths but consistent with an firing squad/execution formation.