John Grimes is a Professor at the Institute of Design, where he teaches courses in interactive media, software design, visualization of information, and imaging. He is also Associate Director of Academics at the school, and is responsible for curriculum development and student recruiting. His research at ID examines the uses of images in interactive media, the future of publications, and the development of user-research methods. One of his current projects, a software-based system for facilitating research into user values, has been sponsored by ID's Tangible Knowledge Consortium, a unique corporate-sponsored research initiative funded by Motorola, Steelcase, Lante, Andersen, and Zebra Technologies.

Professor Grimes is also a leader in the development of computer-supported digital imaging and is an authority on the history and development of photography. He has written and lectured extensively about these subjects, and, in 1992, he co-edited The New Vision for Aperture. He has been a frequent juror for computer animation competitions.

Over the years John Grimes has participated in many professional organizations, including the Society for Photographic Education and ACM-SIGGRAPH. He has organized symposia on the future of the image in publication, and his own images have been included in a number of exhibitions and permanent gallery collections. He holds a B.A. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and an M.S., Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology.