Kiran Basava

Kiran Basava is a Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of Arizona's Data Diversity Lab, building the Animal Culture Database (ACDB) to study socially transmitted animal behaviors amid anthropogenic changes. Her work applies phylogenetic methods to cross-cultural and cross-species analyses of social and cognitive evolution.

Her academic background includes:

• PhD in Anthropology from the University of Oxford
• MSc in Human Evolution and Behaviour from University College London (UCL)
• BA in Global Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)

Research focuses on cultural evolution, database construction, and phylogenetic modeling of warfare practices, animal traditions, and cephalopod cognition. She bridges anthropology, biology, and data science to explore macroevolutionary patterns in human and nonhuman behavior, emphasizing large-scale comparative frameworks.

Publications (2018-2025) reveal consistent themes: animal culture databases (2025), cephalopod brain evolution (2024), warfare ecology (2022), and phylogenetic analyses of religious conflict (2018-2021). Her work prioritizes methodological innovation in linking historical and behavioral datasets across disciplines.

No scientific awards or grant details are documented. She contributes to the Diverse Intelligences project and previously coded for the Seshat Global History Databank during her Oxford PhD.