Ulises Espinoza graduated from DePaul University in 2016, securing a BS in Psychology with a focus on Biology and Cognition. Furthering his passion for understanding human dynamics, he pursued and obtained a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 2023.

Ulises’s scholarly endeavors largely focus on the ascription of value to various bodies of knowledge, especially emphasizing the distinctive ownership components as understood by identities outside the European-derived legal domain. To this end, he uses a biocultural anthropological perspective that integrates anthropology, cognitive science, and experimental philosophy in his work that encapsulates an amalgamation of quantitative and qualitative methodologies. On the quantitative front, he conducted a series of cross-cultural vignette-based studies aiming to better understand the perception of knowledge as property, and its intricate relationship with morality, language, intentions, and institutional customs. On the qualitative side, his research delves deep into the conceptualization of knowledge ownership by Achuar and Shuar communities in southeastern Ecuador, consisting of long-term ethnographic fieldwork that began in 2017.