Grady was born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee and received his B.S. in Chemistry from Tennessee State university. He is currently working on a Masters in Mechanical Engineering at Tennessee State University. Grady joined the Ertekin group in the summer of 2022 during a summer REU where he studied polarization dependent optical properties of transition metal doped . He is interested in using various computational techniques to model point defects and impurities in semiconductors in an effort to understand their effects on properties of materials. In his spare time, Grady enjoys playing classical and jazz piano.