Siobhan Banks, PhD

Professor Siobhan Banks is Director of the Behaviour-Brain-Body Research Centre at the University of South Australia. Banks received her Ph.D. from Flinders University of South Australia in 2004 and undertook a post-doctoral fellowship at the University Of Pennsylvania before joining the faculty in the School of Medicine as a Research Assistant Professor in 2006. In 2009 she returned to Australia with a Fellowship for Women in Science from the University of South Australia. Banks' current research sits at the nexus of biology (fatigue and circadian rhythms), behaviour (individual and team performance) and technology (human machine interface). Her research focuses on the impact of sleep deprivation and shift work on psychological and physiological functioning and how countermeasures may be used to prevent the negative effects of disturbed sleep, in particular work schedules, novel technologies, dietary interventions, napping and caffeine. She has expertise in the objective measurement of fatigue and with designing tools and protocols to investigate the biological and behavioural responses to sleep deprivation, irregular work hours and stress. Her research has been funded by a range of government and industry sources including NHMRC, National Institutes for Health in USA, The US Air Force Office of Scientific Research, NASA National Space and Biomedical Research Institute, Beyond Blue, SA Department of Health and Aging, Lockheed Martin Australia, Naval Group, Thales UK, US Naval Post Graduate School and DST-Group. She has received over $10M in research funding during her career, ranging from basic to applied research. This work has been cited over 7200 times (GoogleScholar). Banks has been awarded a South Australian Young Tall Poppy Science Award (2010) and the Sleep Research Society Young Investigator Award (2011). She is a member of the Australian Space Agency’s Technical Advisory Group on Space Medicine and Life Sciences and also previously served on the Australian Sleep Health Foundation Board of Directors. In 2019 she was awarded the Australian Council Graduate Research Award for Excellence in Promoting Industry Engagement in Graduate Research. 

 
Qualifications
Doctor of Philosophy Flinders University

Bachelor of Arts (Honours) University of South Australia

Bachelor of Arts University of South Australia