portrait of Marcus A. Banks

Marcus A. Banks


Marcus Banks is an intern at Spectrum and a 2019 graduate of the Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program at New York University. He has also worked at Nature Medicine and TCTMD.
Before becoming a journalist, Marcus was a health sciences librarian, most of the time in management roles. His first position was as associate fellow of the National Library of Medicine, part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health. He has also worked at New York University, the University of California, San Francisco, and Samuel Merritt University in Oakland, California.  He has a B.A. in English from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and a master’s degree in library and information science from Dominican University in River Forest, Illinois.

From this contributor

Explore more from The Transmitter

Structural MRI scans of people with Alzheimer’s disease and depression.

Neuropsychiatric MRI brain signatures fail reproducibility test

Small neuroimaging studies are unlikely to capture consistent anatomical changes related to conditions such as autism, schizophrenia and mood disorders, according to a new “wake-up call” study.

By Holly Barker
12 August 2026 | 5 min read
Research image of astrocytes.

Three models, three routes to altered auditory processing, and more

Here is a roundup of autism-related news and research spotted around the web for the week of 10 August.

By Jill Adams
11 August 2026 | 2 min read

Optimized two-photon microscopy enables voltage imaging at multiple depths

The tool could reveal how information flows within and between cortical layers during neural processing.

By Simon Makin
11 August 2026 | 4 min read