He then worked at Mullard, an industrial research laboratory in Redhill, Surrey, and continued his studies at the University of Leeds, where he received a PhD in 1966.
In 1972, Scanlan earned a Doctor of Science from the National University of Ireland.
[1][4] Scanlan's areas of research included electronic circuit and system design, digital circuits and computing, signal processing, digital filters and switched-capacitor filters.
His later work included research into lumped networks, and distributed-element circuit.
[5] Scanlan was president of the Royal Irish Academy (RIA) from 1993 to 1996 and a life fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).