After earning his Ph.D. in 1927 from MIT, Proctor went to work as an instructor in the biology and public health department at the institute.
Proctor also served as director of Subsistence Research of the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps in Washington, DC during World War II.
Literature such as Upton Sinclair's The Jungle in 1906 about slaughterhouse operations would be a factor in the establishment of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) later that year.
A detailed proposal was presented to MIT President Compton in 1936 was presented with $1500 of financial aid from MIT for a meeting to be held from June 30 to July 2, 1937, with Compton asking how many people would be in attendance at this meeting.
He would also win the Nicholas Appert Award in 1956 and would play a major role in the IFT Committee on Education's 1958 Allerton House conference in Monticello, Illinois that would lead to the first IFT undergraduate education standards in 1966.
In even-numbered years since 2000, the Proctor Lectureship has been held in conjunction with the Marcel Loncin Research Prize.