Hawes was the second person to be awarded the Agnes Hoppin Memorial Fellowship, in 1899. Frustrated by lack of support for her desire to be an active archaeological excavator, she took the remainder of her fellowship and went on her own in search of archaeological remains on the island of Crete. This was a courageous decision, as Crete was only just emerging from the war and was far from safe. Her ability to speak fluent Greek, and her record of service with the Red Cross during the Greco-Turkish War a few years earlier, earned her a degree of goodwill from local people that proved critical to the success of her work. In Crete, she visited the excavation of Knossos led by British archaeologist Arthur Evans, who suggested she explore the region of Kavousi. Hawes soon became well known for her expertise in the field of archaeology, and for four months in the spring of 1900 she led an excavation at Kavousi, during which she discovered settlements and cemeteries of Late Minoan IIIC, Early Iron Age, and Early Archaic date (1200-600 BC) at the sites of Vronda and Kastro. During that same campaign she dug a test trench at the site of Azoria, the most important Ancient Greek (i.e. post-Minoan) site in the region, evidently an early city (c. 700-500 BC). Azoria is now under renewed excavation as part of a major five-year project.