Zoological Institute of the University of Würzburg, Germany. Returning to the United States, her Ph.D. advisor was the geneticist Thomas Hunt Morgan. In addition, Stevens' experiments were influenced by the work of the previous head of the biology department, Edmund Beecher Wilson, who had moved to Columbia University in 1891. Stevens received her Ph.D. from Bryn Mawr in 1903 and remained at the college as a research fellow in biology for a year. She continued there as reader in experimental morphology for another year and worked at Bryn Mawr as an associate in experimental morphology from 1905 until her death. She was offered the position she had long sought, as research professor at Bryn Mawr College, just before cancer took her life. She was unable to accept the offer due to her ill health. After receiving her Ph.D. from Bryn Mawr, Stevens was awarded a research assistantship at the Carnegie Institute of Washington in 1904–1905. Stevens' post-doctoral year of work at the Carnegie Institution required fellowship support, and both Wilson and Morgan wrote recommendations on her behalf. She applied for funding for research on heredity related to Mendel's laws, specifically sex determination. After receiving the grant, she used germ cells of aphids to examine possible differences in chromosome sets between the two sexes. One paper, written in 1905, won Stevens an award of $1,000 for the best scientific paper written by a woman. Her major sex determination work was published by the Carnegie Institution of Washington in the two part monograph, "Studies in Spermatogenesis," which highlighted her increasingly promising focus of sex-determination studies and chromosomal inheritance. In 1908, Stevens received the Alice Freeman Palmer Fellowship from the Association of Collegiate Alumnae, now the American Association of University Women. During that fellowship year, Stevens again conducted research at the Naples Zoological Station and the University of Würzburg, in addition to visiting laboratories throughout Europe. Career Stevens was one of the first American women to be recognized for her contribution to science. Most of her research was completed at Bryn Mawr College. The highest rank she attained was Associate in Experimental Morphology (1905–1912). At Bryn Mawr, she expanded the fields of genetics, cytology, and embryology. Although Stevens did not have a university position, she made a career for herself by conducting research at leading marine stations and laboratories. Her record of 38 publications includes several major contributions that further the emerging concepts