Following the completion of his Ph.D., Odenwald moved to Washington, D.C., in 1982, where he worked as a postdoctoral candidate at the Space Sciences Division of the Naval Research Laboratory until 1990.
After a brief stint working for NASA headquarters pursuing education projects, he joined Dr. Mike Hauser with the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) Team in 1992, working on the Diffuse Infrared Background Experiment (DIRBE).