David B. Givens began studying "body language" for his Ph.D. in anthropology at the University of Washington in Seattle. He served as Anthropologist in Residence at the American Anthropological Association in Washington, D.C. from 1985-97, and is currently Director of the Center for Nonverbal Studies in Spokane, Washington. He taught anthropology at the University of Washington and teaches in the School of Professional Studies at Gonzaga University.

His expertise is in nonverbal communication, anthropology, and the brain. Givens has led seminars for lawyers, judges, social workers, salespeople, and physicians; worked with local law-enforcement agencies and the FBI; and consulted with the U.S. intelligence community. His scholarly articles are recognized as international classics by the Max Planck Institute in Germany. Givens and neuroscientist Paul D. MacLean introduced the word "isopraxism" (the reptilian principle of mimicking) into the English language, as announced by the executive editor of the American Heritage Dictionary in the Atlantic Monthly. He was a member of a team of anthropologists, linguists, astronomers, and nuclear physicists charged by the U.S. Dept. of Energy with designing a marker to warn human beings 10,000 years in the future about the dangers of nuclear waste.

Givens has spoken to the Smithsonian Institution, National Academy of Sciences, European COLIPA, U.S. EPA, Washington State Administrator for the Courts, and other groups. He has done consulting for Sandia National Laboratories, the Bechtel Group, U.S. Department of Energy, Pfizer, Epson, Wendy's International, Dell Inc., Unilever, Hallmark, Masterfoods USA, Kimberly Clark, and Best Buy.  His ideas on nonverbal communication have been written about in Omni, Harpers, the New Yorker, U.S. News & World Report and in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times. Givens is the author of Love Signals: A Practical Field Guide to the Body Language of Courtship, Crime Signals: How to Spot a Criminal Before You Become a Victim, and Office Signals: What Corporate Walls Would Say If They Could Talk (forthcoming). His online Nonverbal Dictionary of Gestures, Signs, and Body Language Cues is used around the world as a reference tool.