Keynote with Dr. Sian Proctor – Data Connections, the Learning Landscape and the Future of Education

As schools face increasing pressure to support the entire student-centered experience, the use of data connections has become more central to the process—from how data is collected to how well educators understand and maximize trends. Hear the motivational and inspirational message of Dr. Sian Proctor as she engages the audience to embrace the power of data in helping students from all backgrounds recognize their unique, one-of-a-kind strengths and passions as well as realize what they can achieve. Attendees will walk away knowing how to take action, create opportunities and develop a can-do mind shift that is so critical to today’s changing educational landscape.

An astronaut, geoscientist, educator and renaissance woman, Dr. Proctor is most notably recognized as the mission pilot and the first black civilian astronaut for the world’s first all-civilian orbital mission to space. For more than two decades, she served as a professor teaching geology, sustainability and planetary science at South Mountain Community College, Phoenix, Arizona. She is currently the Open Educations Resource Coordinator for the Maricopa Community College District.

She has appeared on the History, Discovery and National Geographic Channels and is also one of The Explorer’s Club 50: Fifty People Changing the World, a multi-disciplinary, professional society dedicated to the advancement of field research, scientific exploration and resource conservation.

Dr. Proctor has a B.S. in Environmental Science, an M.S. in Geology and a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction: Science Education.