Sian Proctor

Sian Hayley "Leo" Proctor (28 March 1970, Hagåtña, Guam) is an American commercial astronaut, geology professor, artist, author, and science communicator. She became the first female commercial spaceship pilot on the all-civilian Inspiration4 orbital spaceflight, 15 September 2021. As pilot of the Inspiration4's SpaceX Crew Dragon space capsule, Proctor became the first African-American woman to pilot a spacecraft. She was also the education outreach officer for the first Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (HI-SEAS) Mission.

Post-Inspiration4, Sian Proctor has become a noted Afrofuturist artist, poet and author. Proctor is the first African American astronaut to paint in space.

Proctor is a major in the Civil Air Patrol where she serves as the aerospace education officer for its Arizona Wing.

Life and education
Sian Proctor was born on 28 March 1970, in Hagåtña, Guam, to Edward Langley Proctor Jr. and Gloria Deloris. Her father was a Sperry Corporation UNIVAC engineer working for NASA at the Guam Remote Ground Terminal during the Apollo era. She is the youngest of four children, with two brothers, Edward Langley Proctor III and Christopher Proctor, and sister Robyn Selent. After the Moon landings, Proctor's family moved to Minnesota and later to various Northeastern states while her father changed jobs. Her family moved to Fairport, New York, when she was 14 where she later graduated from Fairport High School.

She studied at Arizona State University, where she received an undergraduate degree on environmental sciences and later a masters degree in Geology in 1998. In 2006 she obtained a PhD in Science education. That same year, Proctor got her pilot's license.

She is a member of the Association of Space Explorers. Furthermore in December 2022 she was selected as a member of the National Space Council’s Users Advisory Group. As part of her training as pilot of the Inspiration4 flight, she trained in a Cessna CitationJet CJ3 and (under the tutelage of veteran pilot Isaacman) a MiG-29.

In 2022 she received the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from University of Massachusetts Lowell.

In 2023 she participated in the space camp Space 2101 at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology.

2009 NASA Astronaut Selection
She was a finalist for the 2009 NASA Astronaut Selection Process. She was one of 47 finalists competing against over 3,500 applicants. Nonetheless, during the final round, she was not one of the nine astronaut candidates selected for the 2009 NASA Astronaut Group.

Commercial astronaut during the mission Inspiration4
She was selected as the pilot of the Crew Dragon mission Inspiration4, which launched on 15 September 2021. The Prosperity seat, was obtained as she won an entrepreneur competition. During the flight training she received the call sign Leo.

She was joined by Jared Isaacman, Hayley Arceneaux, and Chris Sembroski, for the first all-civilian human spaceflight mission. In August 2021 she is featured on the cover of a Time magazine double issue with the rest of the crew of Inspiration4.

HI-SEAS (2013)
She acted as education outreach officer for the NASA-funded Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (HI-SEAS) mission. The purpose of the mission was to investigate food strategies for long duration spaceflight and missions to the Moon or Mars.

During the four-month simulation, Proctor was hired by Discover Magazine as the photographer for Kate Greene's article Simulating Mars on Earth. She also filmed the Meals for Mars YouTube series while in the Mars simulation.

PolarTREC (2014)
In 2014, she was selected as a PolarTREC teacher, which is a program funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) that connects teachers with scientists conducting research in the arctic and Antarctic regions. As part of this program, she spent a month in Barrow, Alaska learning historical ecology for risk management and investigating the impact of climate change on the coastline and community.

Astronomy in Chile Educator Ambassadors Program (ACEAP) (2016)
In 2016 she was selected as a ACEAP Ambassador. A program from the National Science Foundation (NSF) that sends K–16 formal and informal astronomy educators to US astronomy facilities in Chile. During the summer of 2016, she joined eight other ambassadors as they visited Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), Gemini South Observatory, and the Atacama Large Millimeter-submillimeter Array (ALMA).

Proctor returned to San Pedro, Chile in 2017 to engage in STEM education outreach activities with the local high school and surrounding community.

NOAA Teacher at Sea (2017)
She participated in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Teacher at Sea program in 2017. The program was started in 1990 and provides teachers with research experience working at sea. In her case, during three weeks she conducted pollock research in the Bering Sea on the fisheries vessel Oscar Dyson and detailed her experience for the blog of NOAA.

Science communication
She is an international speaker, communicating about science education, leadership, spacial simulations, sustainable foods and diversity in science. Furthermore, she has given several TEDx Talks.

Art
Proctor is a life-long artist, painter, and poet. She is a noted Afrofurist artist, working in digital, multi-media, and painting mediums. Proctor is known for her expressions of connection, source, and the divine that she calls AfroGaia. Following her spaceflight, her work frequently makes reference to and is inspired by the space orbit phenomenon of sunlight reflecting off the Earth and back into space and onto spacecraft and astronauts in orbit known as Earthlight (astronomy). She is an artist-in-residence at Arizona State University. While aboard the orbiting Crew Dragon spaceship, she became the first African-American to paint in space.

Appearances in television
She has made multiple appearances on television.


 * 2010: Season 2 of The Colony, a ten episodes show that was filmed in New Orleans.
 * 2012: Appearance in two episodes of the first season of The STEM Journals, an educational show for kids interested in science, technology, engineering, and math.
 * 2016: Appearance in episode 2: Are We Alone of the series Genius by Stephen Hawking
 * From 2017 to 2019 she acted as the science demonstrator on the Science Channel show Strange Evidence.
 * 2020: Phantom signals.
 * 2021: Ancient unexplained files.
 * 2021: When Big Things Go Wrong, a series for The History Channel which explains the science of disasters.
 * 2021: Participated in the series Countdown: Inspiration4 Mission to Space. An original Netflix series.