Dawes chairs the Macquarie University Faculty of Science and Engineering Women in STEM committee, is an elected member of the University Senate, and was elected to the Executive of Science and Technology Australia. She served as president of the Australian Optical Society in 2010–2012, and was Head of Department of Physics and Astronomy from 2013 to 2015. In 2018 Dawes was appointed Fellow of the SPIE, and in 2019 a Fellow of Optica. She has been featured in the SPIE Women in Optics planner.