He has been studying accounting since his teens, starting with double-entry bookkeeping in high school. He received the American Accounting Association (AAA) 2012 Distinguished Contribution to Accounting Literature Award for his research on the effects of accounting conservatism on the properties of reported earnings. His research on the origins of accounting and its co-evolution with the brain and the complexity of economic exchange was recognized with the AAA’s 2006 and 2010 Accounting Horizons Best Paper Awards, and as the AAA’s 2019 Yuji Ijiri Memorial Lecturer on the Foundations of Accounting.

Basu was an editor of Contemporary Accounting Research and is an associate editor or editorial board member of seven journals. He is chair of the AAA’s Accounting Horizons Steering Committee and a member of the AAA Publications Committee. He was co-chair of the 2012 AAA Doctoral Consortium Committee and chair of the 2011 Doctoral Education Committee of the Academy of Accounting Historians. At the Fox School, he served previously as chair of the Promotion and Tenure Review Committee, research director of the Translational Research Center (TRC), chair of the Accounting Department Faculty Recruiting Committee, and in many other roles. He received a Temple University 2018 Outstanding Faculty Service Award.