[2] Lukens studied at the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania under Dr. Hiram Corson beginning in 1867 and graduated from the school on March 13, 1870.

[1] She was the first woman to apply for admission to the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, but discouraged by the reception there, she studied analytical chemistry in the laboratory of Dr.

[1] In 1877, Lukens was appointed assistant physician in the Nursery and Child's Hospital of Staten Island, assuming responsibility of the pharmaceutical department.

In The Part Taken by Women in American History (1912), it was said that "Her work is of a high standard and she occupied a conspicuous position for a woman in the profession which she has chosen.

[4] Lukens had a farm in Pennsylvania, an apartment in New York, and a winter home called "Sequoia Lodge by the Sea" in Pacific Grove, California, which was built in 1906 by Emily Williams.