in 1946, she co-founded with her husband the ethnological institute of magdalena and worked there through 1950. collecting ceramics and ethnographic materials, they established a museum of pieces they amassed during their joint archaeological fieldwork in an area they designated as "pueblito", which is now in the tayrona national natural park, and the river valleys surrounding the ranchería and cesar rivers. one particularly important ritual they documented was a practice of secondary burial among the yuko or yukpa people who lived in the northeastern part of the cesar department. working on the slopes of the sierra nevada de santa marta, dussán who was pregnant again, collected materials from the local indigenous people on their mythology, socialization processes, and traditions. using field questionnaires designed and adapted from margaret mead's methodology, she made pioneering studies on gender relations and parenting traditions in taganga.