Dolores is dedicated to supporting organizations and businesses in navigating and addressing socio-environmental challenges. Her expertise lies in developing, implementing, and facilitating strategies and projects that ensure compliance with international regulations, promoting sustainable economies and a fair energy transition. With a robust background in both the private and public sectors, she has successfully managed projects, provided technical advice, and cultivated key partnerships. Currently, she is assisting a Spanish startup in formulating its Human Rights Due Diligence (HRDD) strategy. In California, she supported a boutique consultancy firm in delivering labor compliance training and solutions across the state. Her international experience is further enriched by over a decade of service with the United Nations in Latin America, where she played a pivotal role in helping Andean countries, particularly Peru and Bolivia, develop their anti-human trafficking policies. She holds a PhD focused on the illegal gold mining industry in the Amazon in which she explored the infiltration and role that illegal practices and organized crime play in the extractive governance of this critical mineral.

• Cortés-McPherson, D. (2020). Digging into the Mining Subculture: The Dynamics of Trafficking in Persons in Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining of Peru’s Madre de Dios. In Y. Zabyelina & D. van Uhm (Eds.), Organized Crime and Corruption in the Mining Industry: Illegal Extraction, Trafficking in Mined Commodities and Environmental Harm. London & New York: Palgrave.

• Cortés-McPherson, D. (2020). Airports as Bottlenecks: the Smuggling of Gold and the Regionalization of the Peruvian Production System. In: Geenen, S., Verbrugge, B. (Eds), The Global Production System Touching Ground: A Story of Global Expansion, Technological Innovation, and Informalization. Palgrave McMillan.

• Cortés-McPherson, D. (2019). Labor Trafficking of Men in Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining Camps of Madre de Dios, a Reflection from the “Diaspora Networks” Perspective. In: Winterdyk J., Jones J. (Eds.), The Palgrave International Handbook of Human Trafficking. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

• Cortés-McPherson, D. (2019). Expansion of Small-Scale Mining in Madre de Dios: ‘Capital Interests’ and the Emergence of a New Elite of Entrepreneurs in the Peruvian Amazon. The Extractive Industries and Society.