Intending a change in career, he enrolled in Pennsylvania State University, where he developed an interest in the nascent science of electronic engineering.
After taking some college courses in electronic engineering, Dudley found employment with Bell Laboratories, which was at that time a division of Western Electric Company.
This led to the patent for the "Vocoder" (a portmanteau of "voice" and "encoder"), a method of reproducing speech through electronic means, and allowing it to be transmitted over distances, as through telephone lines.
The VODER was demonstrated at Bell Laboratory exhibits at both the 1939 New York World's Fair and the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition.
With a woman operator sitting behind the console, phrases resembling human speech could be demonstrated to the audience, although the produced sounds were often difficult to understand.
It utilized technology developed in the VOCODER and VODER projects, and added a random noise source as a method of encrypting speech.