LIFE’S MISSION
“One of my dreams as a kid was to be an explorer, from an early age of running around in the woods, and today I can call myself an explorer.” Sian Proctor
Arizona educator and scientist
From the moment she was born in 1970, Sian Proctor was exposed to the highest levels of scientific research and exploration.
It was all thanks to her dad.
Edward Langley Proctor Jr. was a senior computer engineering technician for NASA’s Apollo space program on the Pacific island of Guam from 1966 to 1970. With her father as her role model and early encouragement from both of her parents, including her mother Gloria, it was no surprise that Proctor grew up with a passion for all types of science.
The STEM fields, however, were not exactly welcoming to women at
the time, much less women of color. But with the tenacity instilled in her by her parents, Proctor did not turn away.
Instead, she earned a Ph.D. in science education and forged a three-decadelong career as a renowned geoscientist, STEM educator and analog astronaut, which is a person who undergoes simulated astronaut training on Earth.
For the past 20 years, Proctor also has been a professor at South Mountain Community College in Phoenix, where she has made it her life’s mission to share her knowledge of science and world exploration with her students.
Among her career highlights, Proctor has completed four Earth-based analog astronaut missions, was a finalist for the 2009 NASA Astronaut Selection Process and has studied and lectured on such cutting-edge topics as sustainable food preservation techniques, climate change and urban sustainability.
The Explorers Club: ‘Wow, I made it’
Proctor’s accomplishments have not gone unnoticed by her peers. Proctor, 50, recently was honored by the Explorers Club, a 117-year-old New York-based organization that counts legends of science and exploration such as Neil Armstrong, Sylvia Earle, Jane Goodall, Buzz Aldrin and Thor Heyerdahl among its members.
Explorers Club members have many groundbreaking accomplishments, including being the first person to the surface of the moon, the first to reach the North Pole and the first to reach the deepest point in the ocean.
In the summer of 2020, the group created the Explorers Club 50: Fifty People Changing the World the World Needs to Know About. The award will be given annually to showcase a diverse group of scientists, activists, explorers and educators.
Proctor is one of 50 people, and 21 women, honored in the first year. The award includes a three-year membership in the Explorers Club and access to networking and other opportunities.
“One of my dreams as a kid was to be an explorer, from an early age of running around in the woods, and today I can call myself an explorer,” Proctor said. “It means the world to me because, again, it’s like, ‘Wow, I made it.’ ”
Dr. Shawna Pandya, a physician who is an accomplished explorer and a scientist-astronaut candidate with Project PoSSUM, an astronautics research and education program, nominated Proctor for the Explorers Club 50.
“The breadth of analog environment experience she has and then evolving that into a successful science communication career, she’s a very good communicator and communicates her passion for discovery to the world,” Pandya said.
“And so when the opportunity came up to nominate deserving individuals for the top 50, Dr. Proctor really came to mind. It was a no-brainer.”
‘Both my parents had a history of proving that you belong’
Proctor’s childhood was filled with scientific discovery. Her dad showed her mathematical equations and encouraged her to go out into nature and not be afraid. She loved model airplanes and her dad took her to the store to buy them.
Proctor was curious about everything. At times her father teased her, calling her “a jack of all trades, a master of nothing.”
The family lived in Guam until Proctor was 2 months old. After that, they moved often, with stops in Minneapolis, New York, New Jersey and New Hampshire, following Edward’s jobs in science and technology.
Proctor’s father didn’t have a college degree. He worked in an era when receiving certification for completing a training program could enable a person to get a job in some science-related fields. But certification didn’t come easy. Edward grew up in Youngstown, Ohio, in an era of heavy segregation, when people had to get creative and work that much harder to fulfill their dreams.
It’s a story etched on Proctor’s soul. “I think both my parents had a history of proving that you belong, especially having grown up half their lives in segregation,” she said.
“Both my dad and my mom left the rural kind of upbringings and segregated surroundings that they were in in order to chase the American dream. They made sacrifices and decisions to take me and my siblings and to try to live in neighborhoods, usually suburban neighborhoods, that had the best schools.”
Following her heart out west
By the time Proctor was ready to head off to college, a career in science was a surety, regardless of the obstacles.
“When you walk into a room, the first thing that people see is your gender and your skin color, things that you typically can’t get away from,” Proctor said. “When you go into fields that are not well represented, you feel like you always
have to prove yourself.”
She obtained her bachelor’s degree in environmental science from Edinboro University in Pennsylvania. When it came time to pursue her master’s, she still yearned to learn all facets of the scientific world. And she had a passion for the romanticized Old West.
“I grew up when Westerns were always on TV,” Proctor said. “And so I grew up watching a lot of Westerns and I thought, ‘Oh, living out west and having horses on the open range would be this amazing experience.’
“So I woke up one day and said, ‘I want to move out west and marry a cowboy. How am I going to do this? I have no money. I’ll go to graduate school.’ ”
Proctor applied to four programs: Utah State University for civil engineering, the University of Wyoming for water resources, Washington State University for environmental science and Arizona State University for geology.
“Whoever took me,” Proctor said, laughing.
She got accepted to all four.
She enrolled at ASU in 1994, mainly because the school offered her a good financial package and a student-teaching position. It was a fortuitous decision for someone with such wide-ranging interests, as many of the Earth sciences fit neatly under the geology umbrella.
“I think things work out for a reason because I ended up coming to ASU getting my master’s in geology and realizing that geology was where I belong,” Proctor said. “I love being a geoscientist. I love traveling the Earth and exploring. And so I didn’t realize at that time, but it met who I was and I feel so fortunate that it worked out.”
Pursuing a life of science
As a geoscientist, Proctor works to understand the natural processes of Earth and other planets. She investigates the Earth’s atmosphere, oceans, soil, climate change, land use and their effects on society.
After receiving her master’s degree in 1998, Proctor began teaching at South Mountain Community College while pursuing a Ph.D. at ASU in Curriculum and Instruction: Science Education, which she completed in 2006.
In the same way she pursued many scientific fields, Proctor has undertaken various endeavors in her career.
In 2013 she served as education outreach officer for the NASA-funded Hawai’i Space Exploration Analog and Simulation mission. In 2014 she spent a month in Barrow, Alaska, on a program called PolarTREC investigating the impact
of climate change on coastline communities for the National Science Foundation.
For two months in 2019, she worked as a science communication outreach officer on the JOIDES Resolution Expedition 383 investigating the dynamics of the Antarctic circumpolar current. The goal of the expedition was to understand the interactions among the ocean, atmosphere and the frozen waters of Antarctica.
As an analog astronaut, Proctor conducts activities in simulated environments and believes that solving issues pertinent to long-duration spaceflight will lead to improvements for issues such as food sustainability and climate change on Earth.
After nearly qualifying as a space flight astronaut in 2009, she continued pursuing space-related projects. In 2020 she was part of the all-female Sensoria Mars 2020 mission, where she served as science communication officer. It was her second mission with HISEAS.
Through her work in space exploration, she has investigated ways to reduce food waste and has given TEDx talks called “Eat Like a Martian“and “Our Transformative Space.” Proctor also has appeared on TV shows including the PBS series “Genius” by Stephen Hawking, “The Colony” on the Discovery Channel and “Strange Evidence” on the Science Channel.
ASU and the Mars Perseverance rover
Having worked intimately on projects related to Mars and written a cookbook called “Meals for Mars,” which includes shelf-stable ingredients suitable for space travel, Proctor has a keen interest in NASA’s recent landing of the Perseverance rover on the red planet. One of the cameras on Perseverance, the Mastcam-Z, was developed at ASU.
“We should be proud to know that we have professors and research scientists that are here from our state that are leading the way in Mars exploration, and all of their knowledge and their insight and all of that is being passed on to students here and to the community here in Arizona,” Proctor said.
“And that’s something for us to be proud of and to celebrate because that means that we have a state that’s on the cutting edge of space exploration.”
What’s next for Sian Proctor?
In addition to continuing her work in exploration, Proctor is the Open Education
Resource Coordinator for the Maricopa County Community College District. Open education resources are textbooks whose licensing allows faculty to revise, redistribute and remix books for students to use. Such textbooks lower the cost of study materials for students.
As an educator and science communication specialist, Proctor sees her mission as distilling the complexities of the latest developments into digestible information for her students and others who want to learn.
She especially wants to inspire the next generation of scientists in Arizona, particularly historically marginalized groups like women and minorities.
Soyasha Pandey, a junior from Nepal who is studying aerospace engineering at ASU, met Proctor while she was in her first year at South Mountain Community College. She says Proctor was a driving force of encouragement for her to learn and reach out to others.
“She was one of the few people that was always pushing me to take this opportunity to apply for this scholarship, to look at this fellowship,” Pandey said. “I didn’t have a lot of mentors, especially in STEM. I didn’t have any role models at all at the time. So for her to be there, especially pushing me .... that was really helpful.”
‘Master of life experiences’
With the Explorers Club’s recognition of her life’s journey, Proctor sees validation in following her dreams.
“My dad would always say, ’You’re a jack of all trades, a master of nothing,’ because I’d be like a tiny butterfly or a squirrel. I was running around and he was like, ‘You need to settle down and pick something that you really love and just do that deeply.’
“That’s what people want you to do, specialize in just this. But I was always just so curious about everything around me. And then I realized, you know, a few years ago that what I really am, I’m a jack of all opportunities, a master of life experiences.”
Proctor also can’t help but remember those who came before her, especially her father and mother, who helped make those dreams possible.
“It’s the people who came ahead of me and trail blazed and opened up opportunities and doors so that I can do things that my parents weren’t necessarily able to do,” she said.