[2][3] He was appointed to the position on January 27, 2009, following the confirmation of his predecessor, Timothy F. Geithner, as United States Secretary of the Treasury.

In 2019, Dudley joined the Griswold Center for Economic Policy Studies at Princeton University as a senior research scholar.

He also led an effort by the NY Fed to highlight the importance of improving culture and conduct in the financial services industry.

In 2002, Dudley wrote the Federal Reserve should have "tightened policy earlier and more aggressively during the 1996-1999 period", with the hope that the downward forces would not have been so intense after the collapse of the stock market that began in 2000.

He led the Group of Thirty team that published: Bank Failures and Contagion: Lender of Last Resort, Liquidity and Risk Management (January 2024).

He also was the author of the Bretton Woods Committee report: A Dual Strategy to Transform Cross-Border Payments (December 2024).