[2] Grimm acknowledges key mentors throughout her life: Stan Gregory for inspiration as an undergraduate student at Hampshire College, Steve Carpenter for providing access to new opportunities, and Jim Collins for his advice once she got to Arizona State.
[1] Grimm has been a professor for the School of Life Sciences and a Senior Sustainability scientist at Arizona State University since 1990.
[3] She was the director of the Central Arizona-Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research Program for nearly two decades (1997-2016), which focuses on studying the social-ecological system of the metropolitan area of Phoenix.
[4] Grimm worked as the director of Arizona State University's Undergraduate Mentorship in Environmental Biology program between 1993 and 1998 in an effort to increase the number of students in underrepresented groups interested in ecology.
She received this award because of her research about urban ecology and studies which focus on the clash between human interaction and the environmental response.