The monthly-published Atlantic magazine did a long interview with Irene Grief. Grief was the first woman to be awarded Ph.D. in computer science from MIT ' in 1975. Initially, she planned to become a teacher, and she did do a bit of teaching before discovering that she was much more interested in research, thinking about, figuring out, and designing systems.

Together with Paul M. Cashman, she started a research field called computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW). The term itself was coined in 1984. The essential question they focussed on was how to organise and co-ordinate collaborative work, and what computer tools were helpful in doing so. Many think that CSCW and groupware (software designed to support collaboration between people involved in joint work) are synonymous, while others consider CSCW to be a subfield that examines the tools and techniques of groupware as well as their psychological, social and organisational impacts.

Grief has devoted almost her entire working life to this field, to figuring out more efficient systems that would support collaborative activities. She worked for IBM from the mid-1990s onwards until her recent retirement.