She heads the committee that established an ecology concentration for graduate students. Since 1991 she has served on review panels for the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, both of which take up nearly a month in reading and evaluating other scientists' proposals. She is current chair of committees in both the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography, and the North American Benthological Society. The more you get involved in administrative details and writing grants, the less you actually get to be out there in the field, which is a drag. Although she says most of her work is basic research, directed at just finding out how things work, she hopes it will prove useful for people trying to understand other systems or similar systems in different places.
Some people are content to stop there.
For me, it's a little more important for there to be some impact or relevance to whatever I do. So I have to think hard about what that is. Grimm traces this need for connection to her upbringing. Every one of us played piano through all the years we were home. The Grimm children performed for people at shelters, raised money for low-income families and food banks, and participated in volunteer literacy programs for kids.