Before joining the Reporter, Zamudio spent three years in California working for daily newspapers, including The Salinas Californian where she covered crime, education and immigration. She is a bilingual reporter and blogger with experience producing videos. In 2007, she traveled to China to produce an in-depth radio story about the impact of the 1989 Tiananmen Square student movement had in current Chinese politics for an NPR affiliate station. She has won fellowships from the Knight Digital Media Center and the Education Writers Association. She graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a degree in journalism.