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Research professor, University of South Australia

Dr Siobhan Banks is a Research Professor and co-director of Behaviour-Brain-Body Research Group at the University of South Australia. Dr 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. Dr Banks’ research examines 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 dietary interventions, napping and caffeine use. 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 and stress. Dr Banks has specific experience with driving simulation and computer based cognitive tasks and measurement of neurobehavioural performance in operational settings. Her research has been funded by the NHMRC, NIH, The US Air Force Office of Scientific Research, NASA, Beyond Blue, SA Department of Health and Aging and DSTG. Dr Banks is on the editorial board of the specialty journal SLEEP, has been awarded a South Australian Young Tall Poppy Science Award (2010) and the Sleep Research Society Young Investigator Award (2011) and she was a member of the Sleep Health Foundation board of directors 2013-2019.

Experience

  • 2006–2009
    Research Assistant Professor, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
  • 2004–2005
    Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine

Education

  • 2004 
    Flinders University of South Australia, PhD