She is an authority on the Muricidae, a large and diverse family of predatory sea snails, or marine gastropod mollusks.
[1] In 1955 she re-enrolled as an undergraduate, but because Newcomb College did not then offer geology degrees to its women students, Vokes switched to Tulane.
[1] In 1971, she spent a sabbatical collecting fossils in South America (Ecuador, Argentina, Chile, Peru) and teaching at Brazil's University of Rio Grande do Sul.
[1] Some of this work was part of a larger project coordinated with other researchers that aimed to identify the origins of various species found in the rock formations of the Dominican Republic.
[3] Vokes and her husband were the core of the paleontological research program at Tulane University, and their fossil collections were extensive.
[5] These collections included research findings from excursions to the southeastern United States, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, South America, and Europe.
[1] In 2010, Vokes took part in a Tulane-sponsored trip to South Africa, where the group participated in a tree-planting program in Soweto.
[7] The award honors Vokes's service to continuing education at Tulane, including pioneering Saturday classes.