Scoville's major research investigations include: first mapping of CO emission in the Galactic Plane and discovery of the 5 kpc molecular gas ring (with Phil Solomon); first theoretical analysis of line photon trapping in the molecular emission lines (with Solomon); first recognition that molecular gas clouds were self-gravitating (rather than being galactic spiral arms); theory of mass-loss winds from red giant stars and their molecular emission lines (with Peter Godreich); the UMass-Stonybrook galactic CO survey (with Dave Sanders, Phil Solomon and Dan Clemens), the UMass extragalactic CO survey (with Judy Young and students); High Resolution IR spectroscopy (with Don Hall, Susan Kleinman and Steve Ridgway); observations and theoretical modelling of ULIRGs and the evolution of starburst galaxies to quasars (with Dave Sanders, Colin Norman and others); imaging of local ULIRGs and the Galactic Center with the Hubble Space Telescope NICMOS camera (with Roger Thompson, Aaron Evans and Susan Stolovy); founder and leader of the COSMOS collaboration; and the evolution of interstellar gas and dust in galaxies from z = 0.1 to 5 (with the COSMOS collaboration).
Scoville's main hobby outside astronomy is steel sculptural design and construction and welding.
He also works on the Hubble Heritage Project, and the Cosmic Evolution Survey[4] a multi-wavelength deep-field study of galaxies in the early universe.
While at the University of Massachusetts, Scoville was the associate director of Five College Radio Astronomy Observatory.
[3] Scoville developed the MIR software package for calibrating data from the OVRO Millimeter Array, which was later used by other astronomical radio interferometers.