Alldredge continued her education to earn a PhD in 1975 from the
University of California, Davis. Between 1975 and 1976, she studied at the
Australian Institute of Marine Science as a NATO Postdoctoral Fellow. She joined the faculty of the
University of California, Santa Barbara in 1976 and has conducted research on ocean ecology. Alldredge has conducted research in the open sea, at her laboratory at the
University of California, Santa Barbara as well as in collaboration with the
Long Term Ecological Research Network (LTER) at the Mo'orea Coral Reef Long Term Ecological Research Site (MCR LTER) in
Mo'orea,
French Polynesia. Alldredge discovered the existence of abundant gel particles called
Transparent Exopolymer Particles (TEP) She is an authority on
marine snow, the particles which settle to the bottom of the oceans, and the cycling in the sea of carbon. Alldredge has been credited for her role in UC-Santa Barbara's ranking as 7th best university worldwide based on its global scientific impact and collaboration record. She is in the top 0.1% of the
ISI Web of Knowledge's highly cited researchers and has remained there since 2003. Alldredge became the chair of the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology at UC-Santa Barbara in 2004. == Awards and honors ==