During the COVID-19 pandemic, Sian Proctor wrote poetry as a way to cope with the social isolation the health crisis brought.
A geoscience professor at the Maricopa Community Colleges in Arizona, who has a pilot license and maintains a deep interest in space exploration, she decided to record her recitation of her poem “Space to Inspire” for a NASA application to fill an open seat on a space flight. Earlier, Procter had piloted a commercial space flight for SpaceX, but it was the poem, she says, that “won me a seat to space.”
The NASA flight gave her “orbital perspective” and a feeling of connectivity to humanity and the Earth. Recently she became a science envoy for the U.S. Department of State, a role in which she plans to share information about the importance of protecting the Earth’s environment.
The State Department’s Science Envoy Program recruits eminent U.S. scientists and engineers to tap into their expertise and connections to help identify opportunities for international cooperation. Each science envoy, serving for one year, helps America’s bilateral science and technology relationships.
Envoys reach out to other countries and advance policy objectives, including the recruitment of women into science fields and the promotion of science education. Proctor says she hopes to be a role model for girls and young women who want to enter STEM fields. “There is space for all” in STEM careers, she says.
