Bugie worked as one of “Waksman’s assistants” and is occasionally credited as demonstrating the antibiotic activity of streptomycin against 10 Gram-positive and 12 Gram-negative bacteria. Although she is well known for her authorship on the historical seminal paper announcing streptomycin and was recognized by Waksman in his Nobel lecture (Waksman 1953), she did not appear on the patent—despite patent law and another assistant, Albert Schatz, later being added—and her name is largely overshadowed by the more outspoken Schatz. 

In Selman’s autobiography, My Life with the Microbes, Bugie is never directly mentioned besides being one of many assistants in his lab (Waksman 1954). But, in a “parable” by Waksman, a story he used to describe his version of events which later became how he controlled the narrative of streptomycin's discovery, Bugie is credited with carrying out certain tests that led to the isolation and identification of the antibiotic (Pringle 2012).