[1] She worked as a curator at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History and also conducted research at the herbarium at California State University, Northridge.
[4] Velva Rudd wrote her master's thesis at North Dakota Agricultural College on Euphorbia virgata (leafy spurge).
[6] In 1953 she received her Ph.D. in botany from George Washington University with a dissertation titled The American Species of Aeschynomene.
[8][9] Her field work was carried out in many tropical locations, including Mexico, Costa Rica, Brazil, Venezuela, and Sri Lanka.
[2] North Dakota State University's Department of Biological Sciences sponsors an annual Dr. Velva E. Rudd Scholarship Award for botany juniors or seniors.