Mary Jo Dudley is the Director of the Cornell Farmworker Program (a collaborative effort of CALS, CHE and CCE), and a faculty member of the Department of Global Development. She has extensive research interests in immigrant workers, farmworkers, US-Latin American relations, migration from Latin America to the US, and immigrant communities in the US.

She is currently involved in capacity building within the farmworker community in New York State. She is also engaged in research on farmworker contributions, farmworker perceptions about life in their new communities, farmworker empowerment, and gender and participation. Current research with farmworkers and farmers examines how to improve workplace relations. Dudley was selected for the 2012 White House Champions of Change Cesar Chavez Legacy award. In 2015 she was awarded the George D. Levy Engaged Teaching and Research Award at Cornell University.