Francis Leslie Scott MRIA (3 July 1928 – 14 January 2008) was an Irish chemist in the field of organic chemistry, though he contributed equally to the wider scientific world.
Only ten percent left Ireland on a permanent basis, following Scott's hope of attracting top students and training them in the initial stage to keep them highly motivated.
From 1949 to 1953 and alongside Joseph Reilly, Scott co-supervised twenty-five MSc and PhD students, including physicist Margaret Kennedy, whom he subsequently married.
[2] In 1953, Scott moved to the University of California (UCLA) in Los Angeles,[3] where he continued research with the Canadian chemist Saul Winstein.
The first, sponsored by The Royal Society of Chemistry in July 1964, was on organic reaction mechanisms; it attracted over 600 international devotees of industry and academia.
[2] After the death of his wife in 1973, Scott returned to University College Cork to work with Donald J. Cram, who was later awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.