Professor Simon Banks is the Vice Dean (Education) in the Faculty of Natural, Mathematical and Engineering Sciences and Professor of Natural Sciences Education in the Department Chemistry, King’s College London.

Simon completed his MSci and PhD degrees in chemistry at UCL, before moving to the University of Oxford in 2005 to carry out post-doctoral research. In 2007, he was awarded a British Ramsay Memorial Fellowship.

Since returning to UCL in 2009, Simon’s career has focused on education and the student experience. From 2013 he served as Deputy Head (Education) of the Department of Chemistry, before moving to the Faculty of Engineering Sciences where he spent eight years as Director of Education and Faculty Tutor. He moved to his current role at King’s College London in 2024.

Simon is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. He holds a Postgraduate Certificate of Learning and Teaching in Higher Education and has a particular interest in education policy and strategy. His research spans the statistical mechanics of classical model magnets and the quantum dynamics of reactive collisions involving small polyatomic molecules.   

 

Research

• Theoretical chemistry
• Statistical mechanics
• Complex systems
• Quantum reaction dynamics

Simon uses simulations of classical model magnets to explore fluctuations and emergent phenomena in highly correlated systems, such as those close to critical points or subject to a high degree of frustration.

His work on quantum reaction dynamics applies reduced-dimensionality methods to model reactive collisions between atoms and molecules.

 

Publications

Magnetic-moment fragmentation and monopole crystallization

ME Brooks-Bartlett, Simon T Banks, Ludovic DC Jaubert, Adam Harman-Clarke, Peter CW Holdsworth, Physical Review X 4 (1), 011007 (2014)

Long-range magnetic interactions and proximity effects in an amorphous exchange-spring magnet

Fridrik Magnus, ME Brooks-Bartlett, R Moubah, Rachael A Procter, Gabriella Andersson, TPA Hase, ST Banks, Björgvin Hjörvarsson, Nature Communications 7 (1), ncomms11931 (2016)

 

Teaching

Simon has extensive experience designing and teaching curricula at the interface between chemistry and physics, for both undergraduate and postgraduate taught degrees.