During the Second World War, her family moved frequently, as her father David Donaldson was a pilot in the Royal Air Force.
She worked at English Electric Computers for several years and married John Grundy, who taught philosophy at Keele in 1966.
Paradoxically, this - and the fact that computer science is still a relatively young subject - is also an opportunity: to explore why this is the case and to change things before they get stuck.
Grundy taught and researched in computer science at Keele University, focusing on databases and systems development, and became increasingly interdisciplinary.
Based on her experiences as a teacher in a male-dominated field, she turned to gender studies in computer science.