Society for Amateur Scientists

The Society for Amateur Scientists (SAS) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to "helping ordinary people do extraordinary science".

History

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 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 in science education.

SAS provides a number of services to citizen scientists. The organization publishes an 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. In July 2008 the Chicago Tribune named The Citizen Scientist one of their five favorite science magazines. 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.

In December, 2008 Discover Magazine named three SAS members-Forrest Mims, Ely Silk and Bill Hilton-to be amongst the "50 Best Brains In Science"

In the summer of 2010, SAS was forced to scale back its activity due to financial pressures combined with internal management issues. In June SAS ceased publication of "The Citizen Scientist" and as of this writing (January 2012) has all but ceased operations. The web domain for SAS (http://www.sas.org) was sold and a new domain created, http://www.soamsci.org. The original SAS web site and old TCS files are available there, but the site has no been updated in some time.

In response to the shutdown of SAS, a new organization, the Citizen Scientists League (http://citizenscientistsleague.com) was formed in November of 2010 by former SAS members Forrest Mims and Sheldon Greaves, Ph.D., to carry on the mission of promoting science literacy and amateur science.

'Labrats'

SAS is 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 24,000 claimed members. New members register through SAS's project support website.

External links

• "Society for Amateur Scientists Home Page". http://soamsci.org/index.html. Retrieved 2012-01-02. 
• "The Citizen Scientist - The Official Publication of the Society for Amateur Scientists". http://soamsci.org/tcs/index.html. Retrieved 2012-01-02.