Research Affiliate
Dr Dan Mullins is a Research Affiliate at the Centre for the Study of Social Cohesion (CSSC) and Strategic Research Development Lead at Birkbeck, University of London. He holds a DPhil in Anthropology from the University of Oxford (Linacre College), where his doctoral research examined the co-evolution of ritual, literacy, and cooperation in complex societies.
Dan's work investigates how cultural systems—from ancient religious and writing practices to modern organisational frameworks—scale and adapt to solve collective action problems. He was a key contributor to the Seshat: Global History Databank and has co-authored research with CSSC Director Harvey Whitehouse evaluating the performance characteristics of Large Language Models (LLMs) for ethnographic annotation. His research on morality-as-cooperation, testing theoretical predictions across 60 societies, has been cited over 840 times across disciplines, including anthropology, psychology, and economics.
Currently, Dan is focused on the intersection of research innovation and digital product delivery. As a certified Agile Product Owner (PSPO I), he specialises in applying modern delivery frameworks to complex research environments. This research perspective informs his current work—treating academic workflows as cultural systems requiring adaptive coordination mechanisms, thereby bridging the gap between academic rigour and agile value creation.
