Grady completed a PhD on trade union responses to neoliberal pensions reforms at Lancaster in 2011.
[5] She then moved to work at the University of Sheffield, and became active in the UCU branch there, as its pensions officer.
[2][6] The General Secretary of UCU, Sally Hunt, stood down in February 2019, and Grady ran in the resulting election.
[2][4][6] In May 2023, Grady agreed to pay "substantial damages" to political commentator Paul Embery after a libel claim was made against her following tweets that he said falsely portrayed him as "a misogynist, a pervert and a liar" that were made in response to him highlighting the anti-social behaviour of a group of women on a train.
[8][9] Since then she has been mired in controversy after UCU staff took strike action over a dispute which includes issues around institutional racism, organisational dysfunction, and the breach of the staff union's recognition agreement after she agreed that another union would be recognised for UCU managers.