while continuing to work in a consultative role with the gold museum, dussán was appointed to serve as the head of the division of museums and restoration of the colombian institute of culture in 1970. simultaneously, as a guggenheim fellow, she worked on a project sponsored by harvard university and the colombian national institute of nutrition to evaluate the effects of malnutrition on mental development in colombia. she resigned from the museum post in 1973 and between 1975 and 1977 worked among the kogi people completing archaeological and ethnological studies. in 1978, dussán moved to los angeles, california and worked as a visiting curator for the museum of cultural history. in 1980, she transferred to the natural history museum of los angeles county, where she remained until 1982. returning to colombia, she began work on as a co-producer of an audiovisual media project on colombian culture created by the ministry of education.