Society for Amateur Scientists

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The Society for Amateur Scientists (SAS) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to "helping ordinary people do extraordinary science". The organization was founded in San Diego, California on January 1, 1994 by Shawn Carlson, Ph.D., a physicist from the University of California, Berkeley's Center for Particle Astrophysics. Inspired by the example of his grandfather, a gifted amateur scientist named George Donald Graham, Carlson decided to create an organization dedicated to supporting and encouraging citizen scientists in all fields of science. Members of the founding Board of Trustees included Nobel Prize winner Glenn Seaborg and Guggenheim Fellowship winner Paul MacCready. In 2000, the organization relocated to East Greenwich, Rhode Island and in June of 2007 it moved again when Carlson also became the Executive Director of the SciTech Hands On Museum--a science center in Aurora, Illinois.

In 1995, Scientific American magazine tapped Carlson, due to his leadership in the citizen scientist community, to write their long running column The Amateur Scientist. During the six years that Carlson wrote this column, SAS grew to a reported 2,000 members. In 1999, the MacArthur Foundation recognized Carlson for his visionary leadership in creating SAS with a MacArthur Fellowship.

SAS provides a number of services to citizen scientists. The organization publishes a bi-weekly Ezine called The Citizen Scientist, which is edited by Forrest Mims and which provides how-to science tips as well as reports of citizen scientist research. SAS hosts annual conferences in various cities around the United States. They run a community website to promote networking between citizen scientists around the world. They also have a number of local chapters and affiliate organizations.

SAS also provides educational services to young researchers. In particular, they sponsor a science project support website, now called Dr. Shawn's Super Science Project Support Center, which was started by SAS board member John Gudenas, a computer science professor at Aurora University and Aurora Ill, and personally redesigned by Carlson.

They are also developing what they hope will be a national science education program called "Labrats", that is loosely modeled after the Scouting organizations. As of September 2006, they claim to have attracted nearly $500,000 in private donations to support the program and to have completed a highly successful 5-month pilot program in June, 2006. An online version of Labrats already exists with 19,000 claimed members. New members register through SAS's project support website.