Public Biography
Caroline Banks is the science and technology correspondent for The New York Time5. Her reporting spans emerging technologies, scientific research, consumer electronics, and the intersection of innovation and public policy. She joined the paper in 2020 after five years at Wired, where she covered artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and what she once described in a staff meeting as “the full spectrum of things that will either save or destroy us.”
Ms. Banks holds a Bachelor of Arts in English literature from Wesleyan University. She has no formal scientific training, a fact she addresses preemptively in her official bio by noting that “the best science journalism is produced by people who have to learn things the way readers do,” a position that has not been endorsed by the paper’s science desk.
She won a National Magazine Award in 2019 for a feature on quantum computing that three physicists who reviewed it described as “enthusiastic.” Her reporting on cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence, and gene editing has been widely cited, though occasionally by sources correcting specific claims.
Ms. Banks lives in Brooklyn and is a frequent speaker at technology conferences, where she is valued for her ability to make complex subjects accessible and her willingness to ask panelists questions they clearly did not expect.
Selected Coverage
- The 2025 congressional hearings on artificial intelligence regulation
- A profile of a cryptocurrency startup that was, at time of publication, already under federal investigation
- The pig Latin encryption breakthrough in digital financial security