The Global Alliance of Community Science Workshops (GACSW) is a nonprofit organization with the mission to support, promote, and propagate CSWs.
CSW sites all run independently. The GACSW provides a community of practice for member CSWs, leads initiatives to sustain and increase their impact, and grows our movement into new communities.
While the individual CSWs focus on discovery-based learning, the GACSW works on initiatives that share resources and extend our collective reach.
The GACSW pools resources, knowledge, and practices, and creates spaces for CSWs to connect.
As an example, each year the GACSW hosts an in-person, multi-day Nonference (a non-conference!) for all CSW staff members. At the Nonference, we share activities from CSW sites, connect with allied partners like San Francisco’s Exploratorium, tinker and build together, and sometimes camp out beneath the redwoods and stars.
At the 2025 Nonference, our team spent the final day on-site at one of the newest CSW sites, the Barrio Science Workshop (BSW) in Santa Cruz, developing their workshop space. We helped BSW staff build exhibits, paint signs, knocked down a wall (safely!), and provided activities programs for the public that evening at their grand opening event.
The GACSW also offers specialized support to CSWs, such as leadership training, development strategy, and administrative know-how.
When the Science My Way CSW started in mid 2023, the GACSW became its interim fiscal sponsor for over a year, providing the institutional support their team needed to get started. Science My Way has run independently since July 2025, reaching thousands of students in Watsonville, CA and beyond!
In the fall of 2025, GACSW staff traveled to the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, to join with local science educators and their incredible programs. Our goal is to support existing programs on Pine Ridge, and to provide CSW resources for our new colleagues.
Science My Way and Barrio Science Workshop both started in the past 2 years, and CSW Director Olivia Santiago just opened the brand new NoCo Science Workshop in Fort Collins, CO! Our team connected with Olivia through our long collaboration with colleagues at the Little Shop of Physics (LSOP). GACSW staff and board members traveled there in February 2026 to support NoCo’s opening programs and LSOP’s open house event.
Founder Dan Sudran sparked the idea for CSWs in his San Francisco Mission District garage in 1991. Today, 12 sites in 5 states follow this model, with other sites preparing to open.
In the beginning, there was Dan Sudran’s garage.
In 1991, Dan lived in the predominantly Latino Mission District of San Francisco. His garage was stuffed with electronic detritus, rocks and fossils, oscilloscopes and microscopes, piles of books, tools and materials of every kind, and preserved roadkill. Dan was guided by his own curiosity – pursuing his own answers and forming his own creations.
Local kids poked their heads in the garage and were invited in to look around. Those who only spoke Spanish were happy to find that Dan was fluent. They plied him with questions and found that Dan was a natural teacher and storyteller. Dan saw that these children’s sense of wonder was just like his own, and realized that they did not have access to these experiences and materials in their homes or schools.
Dan had the idea that he could reach more kids by forming a public space for a wider community. He made allies towards his mission, and secured a space in a room at the City College of SF, later moving into a larger space at Mission High School. Dan spread the word encouraging local kids and their families, and later school groups to attend. Over the years, he and his staff developed activities, built interactive exhibits, and started afterschool, family science, and school-day programs. The Community Science Workshop model was born.
In the 90’s and 2000’s, Dan received NSFs grants to grow new CSWs across California and nationwide. Each site ran on its own and was unique. It was a time of testing for possible CSW models, programs, directors and institutions, and a few CSWs from that time are still going strong today. Many of us on the GACSW team who knew Dan were charmed, then amazed, then inspired to start CSWs in our own communities. We were connected by sharing resources and learning from each another, with Dan as our torcher-bearer and lead tinkerer-in-chief.
In 2020, sadly, Dan became critically ill, and two years later, our dear friend and mentor passed away. Before he passed, the CSW site directors started the Global Alliance of Community Science Workshops (GACSW), to carry on his legacy. Dan believed it is every child’s right to explore, create, and tinker, and that these experiences can foster a deep sense of inquisitiveness, vitality, and impact for a life’s trajectory. The GACSW is committed to this vision by supporting existing Workshops, and expanding CSWs to new communities.
Visit the CSW Manual for the full history!
Watch our mini-documentary to see our story come to life.
President: Manuel Hernandez
Vice President: Curt Gabrielson
Secretary: Darren Gertler
Treasurer: Erik Herman
Interim Co-Executive Directors: Curt Gabrielson, Erik Herman, Ziggy Khan
Board members. Most members or our 9-member board have been involved with CSWs for many years:
Check out the CSW Model in action!
