Dawes became a Senior Lecturer at Macquarie University in 1995. She was promoted to Associate Professor in 2001, and Professor in 2016. Dawes is the Director of the MQ Photonics Research Centre, a Macquarie University Research Centre for optics and photonics. Her research considers the characterisation of absorption and emission in 3D photonic crystals known as opals. In these crystals, visible light cannot pass through large thicknesses, which is the basis of the optical band gap. Dawes developed the framework to create and characterise opals, inverse opals and opals that include waveguides for photonic devices. Dawes uses the waveguides for pump- probe measurements, in an effort to make efficient optical amplifiers for photonic chips. She also demonstrated that metal opals could be used for nanoplasmonics. She has used self-assembly to encourage the fabrication of large area opals without cracks. These cracks appear during annealing, and can be eliminated using a bi- capillary growth mechanism to encourage growth separately from solvent evaporation.