Her interest in physics and nature rather than the arts led her to study meteorology at Munich's Ludwig Maximilians University (LMU), receiving her diploma in 1980.

While doing a literature review on the physical properties of sea ice for MAN Neue Technologie AG, she learned more about polar exploration from her colleagues who had overwintered at the Georg von Neumayer Station, Germany's Antarctic science station.

After giving birth to two daughters in 1990 and 1992, in 1994 she submitted her PhD thesis on German Polar research since the turn of the century and the influence of Erich von Drygalski (German: Die deutsche Polarforschung seit der Jahrhundertwende und der Einfluß Erich von Drygalskis).

[5] Lüdecke completed her second thesis (Habilitation) titled Chapters from the history of earth-sciences – protagonists, theses, institutions at the Centre for History of Natural Sciences, Mathematics and Technology at the University of Hamburg in 2002 and attained the title "Privatdozent" in 2003.

For SCAR's first Antarctic and Southern Ocean Science Horizon Scan in April 2014, Lüdecke was among 75 scientists and policy-makers from 22 countries to identify the 80 most important scientific research topics concerning for the next two decades.

[28][29] In 2010 Lüdecke received the Reinhard Süring Medal from the German Meteorological Society for her "long-time dedicated activities in research and teaching in the field of history of natural sciences (especially of meteorology) and the successful organization of numerous national and international symposia".