Dr. Wilbanks has focused his research on relationships between utilization of technology and social and economic development, both in the United States and in developing countries. Topics in his publications include attention to energy and environmental choices and impacts, decision-making and institution-building, and such cross-cutting issues for science as relationships between macroscale and microscale processes. He is the author or coauthor of six books and monographs, more than ninety journal articles and book chapters, and more than one hundred papers presented at universities and professional meetings in twelve countries.

Dr. Wilbanks has received numerous honors and awards in his distinguished career, including AAG Honors, election as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and 1993 distinguished Geography Educator of the year by the National Geographic Society for his contributions to the scientific content of national education standards for geography.

From 1992 to 1993, he served as president of the Association of American Geographers, and during the period 1993 to 1997, he chaired geography committees of the National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council (NAS/NRC), the U.S. National Committee for the International Geographical Union, and an NAS committee that produced Rediscovering Geography: New Relevance for Science and Society (1997), which assessed a scientific discipline from the standpoint of external needs and expectations.

At ORNL, Dr. Wilbanks is manager of Global Change and Developing Country Programs. Current activities are focused on biodiversity protection and environmental institution-building in Guatemala, industrial ecology in India, and both national and international responses to global climate-change issues, including several leadership roles in the first U.S. National Assessment of Consequences of Climate Variability and Change. He also serves as adjunct professor of geography at the University of Tennessee and on a variety of national committees and panels. In previous years, his activities included assisting in the preparation of U.S. National Energy Plan II (1978–79) and the USAID Global Climate Change Initiative (1997–98).