Scott Franklin received his B.S. (1991) in physics from the University of Chicago and his Ph.D. (1997) from the University of Texas-Austin.  His dissertation, under Professor Michael Marder, was a computational and theoretical study of the complex dynamics of dislocations in Aluminum alloys.  He subsequently was awarded a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship in STEM Education which allowed him to work with Professor Priscilla Laws at Dickinson College.  There he co-authored Explorations in Physics, an activity-based curriculum for non-science majors published by John Wiley & Sons.  In January 2012, Explorations was awarded the Science magazine prize for Inquiry-Based Instruction.

Since arriving at RIT in 2000, Scott has conducted research both in granular materials that cohere through particle geometry and physics education research.

In 2010, he co-founded the Science & Mathematics Education Research Collaborative, a group of faculty from the departments of physics, biology, and chemistry that conduct discipline-based education research.