Dr. Dudek began working on synaptic plasticity in the hippocampus as an undergraduate with Gary Lynch at the University of California at Irvine. During graduate school working with Mark Bear, and as part of her dissertation work, she made seminal discoveries on long-term synaptic depression (LTD) in the hippocampus. Following postdoctoral studies with Michael Friedlander and Gail Johnson at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, she joined the laboratory of Doug Fields at the NICHD. Dr. Dudek moved to NIEHS as an Investigator in 2001. Her laboratory continues to study the cellular mechanisms of synaptic plasticity in the adult and developing mammalian hippocampus.