She became professor-head of laboratory at the Lycée de Troyes and then was a doctoral fellow at the French National Museum of Natural History for two years.
[3] To research her doctoral thesis, Basse left for the island of Madagascar as project manager for the Museum of Natural History and was attached to the local mining service (1930–1932).
After returning to Paris, she defended her thesis in 1935 about plant groups in southwestern Madagascar, earning her Ph.D.[2] She was named a Fellow of the National Science Fund (1932) and appointed lecturer at CNRS (1948) before becoming research director (1960).
[2] She became associate assistant to the geological map of France (1956), and in the 1960s held the post of director of the prehistoric antiquities in the district known as "Paris-Nord" (Paris North).
Author Anick Coudart wrote, "As such, she was the first (and for nearly 20 years the only) woman in France entrusted with the administration of archaeological excavations".