Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera is professor in the Schar School of Policy and Government, and co-director of the Terrorism, Transnational Crime, and Corruption Center (TraCCC) at George Mason University. Her areas of expertise are border studies, US-Mexico relations, international security, migration studies, and illicit networks.

She is author of Los Zetas Inc.: Criminal Corporations, Energy, and Civil War in Mexico (University of Texas Press, 2017; Spanish version: Planeta, 2018). Her newest co-authored book is entitled Frontera: A Journey Across the US-Mexico Border (Texas Christian University Press, 2024). Her forthcoming book in Spanish (2026) is titled: "Carteles Inc: A 'New Generation' of Criminal Networks" (in contract with Siglo XXI Editores).

Professor Correa-Cabrera is past president of the Association for Borderlands Studies (ABS) and co-editor of the International Studies Perspectives journal. She currently conducts research on human smuggling and transnational crime networks, and is writing her upcoming book titled "Coyotes LLC: The Industry of Human Smuggling and the American 'Dream.'”

Professor Correa-Cabrera was a Fulbright US Scholar in Mexico and Visiting Scholar at El Colegio de la Frontera Norte in Tijuana in 2014–2015. In the Fall of 2025 she was distinguished visiting scholar at the Davidson Institute for Global Security of The John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding in Dartmouth College. She is currently visiting scholar at the Center for Research on Latin American and the Caribbean (CIALC) of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). She is a frequent commentator on Mexican politics, US-Mexico relations, (im)migration, and border security for several media outlets.