Dr. Banks is a senior researcher in satellite oceanography of international standing. 

He has more than twenty years of research experience in earth observation / remote sensing since his first publication in the field in 1997 and is now author of >70 papers in peer reviewed journals and international conference proceedings.

His academic qualifications are all from some of the top United Kingdom institutions in the field of earth observation: firstly a B.Sc. (Honours) in Physical Geography from the University of Reading in 1993 (concentrating on remote sensing in collaboration with the NERC unit on thematic information systems (NUTIS) hosted on the University of Reading campus); secondly an M.Sc. in Remote Sensing from University College London (UCL) and Imperial College in 1994; and thirdly a Ph.D. from the NERC Environmental Systems Science Centre (formerly NUTIS, hosted on the University of Reading campus, and now part of the Meteorology department) in 2000.

Dr. Banks was the satellite oceanography researcher at HCMR (formerly IMBC) for 12 years (2000-2012) before gaining wider international experience, first at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission as a scientific officer for satellite oceanography for 3 years (2012-2015) and then as a senior research scientist in earth observation at the National Physical Laboratory of the United Kingdom for another 3 years (2015-2018). From this experience Dr. Banks has gained strategic research expertise and a network of European and international contacts.

With his return to HCMR in 2018, these will help to ensure the successful implementation of his vision for a greater integration of satellite oceanography and marine optics in Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean with the global EO and climate research community.

As a major part of his role, Dr. Banks continues to concentrate on improving the accuracy and assessing the uncertainty of satellite measurements of the ocean, and thus increasing their reliability as part of climate data records. This is primarily through research and implementation of fiducial reference measurements for satellite validation and vicarious calibration in Greek waters as part of Copernicus, ESA, EUMETSAT, NASA and other international initiatives.