Women in Energy: Anna Scott, Project Canary

Presented by:

Driven by the desire to create a cleaner, more sustainable environment, Dr. Anna Scott worked her way from an unpaid intern at a startup energy retailer to the co-founder of an analytics company with the goal of achieving net-zero emissions through methane tracking and reduction.

Dr. Scott has traveled all around the world from Alabama to Kenya in pursuit of projects to reduce the impact of climate change. After earning her Ph.D. in Earth and Planetary Science at John Hopkins University, she co-founded Project Canary to fulfill her belief that harmful emissions can be reduced and eradicated.

“The challenge and opportunities presented by climate change motivated me to roll up my sleeves and try to be helpful,” Dr. Scott said.

Motivated by climate change

“Initially, I wanted continuous emissions monitoring technology to exist in the upstream sector and set a goal of getting just one customer with one well to use the technology. Today, I want this type of technology to become mainstream across the supply chain. The challenge of climate change and the need for the industry to transform its approach to ESG gets me out of bed in the morning. I also love all the friends and colleagues I’ve made in the industry who strive to do the right thing every day, and I’m motivated to help them achieve their emission reduction goals.”

Important career milestone

“Hitting the milestone of deploying 1,000 sensors recently was humbling. I never imagined when we started developing the technology that we’d get this far in such a short amount of time, and I couldn’t have done it without the hard work and support of countless engineers, early funders and, of course, our customers (many of whom are women to whom I’ll be forever grateful).”

Power of empathy

“As a research assistant in graduate school, I learned to bring together groups of diverse stakeholders and to listen to each stakeholders’ different desires, ways of thinking and priorities. I think about the work we do at Project Canary as serving our customers. While the technical skills I’ve cultivated are important to being able to develop, critique and understand technical solutions, the skills I developed listening and empathizing are the most important.”

Women supporting women

“Many of my first clients were women, and I’ve depended on the support of other women as I brought my sensors to market. I try to pay that support forward by serving as a mentor for women in energy with Techstars and other organizations.”

Crowdsourcing wisdom

“One of the best pieces of advice I read recently was to make everyone your mentor by learning at least one thing from everyone you work for. I didn’t have a single professional mentor, so being able to take one lesson away from everyone helps me to crowdsource wisdom. Look for a big problem where you can make an outsize impact rather than a brand name where you can put in the hours.”

Click here for a full list of “25 Influential Women in Energy” honorees for 2022.