After completing studies for the doctorate in Slavic Languages at Columbia University, Professor Grenier joined the Department of Slavic Languages in 1991.

Before studying at Columbia, she earned the M.A. in Slavic Philology at St. Petersburg University in Russia, where she majored in Polish Language and Literature.

Associate Professor Grenier wrote her master’s thesis on Stefan Zeromski's use of the trope of personification in his novel The Ashes (1902). At Columbia University, she specialized in Russian literature. Her doctoral dissertation, " ‘Everyone Knew Her, No One Noticed Her’: The Fate of the Vospitannitsa (Female Ward) in XIXth-century Russian Literature," traces the evolution of the character type of the young female dependent from Pushkin's Queen of Spades to Dostoevsky's Demons and Tolstoy's Anna Karenina.

Professor Grenier’s research interests include issues of gender, Russian women writers, and moral questions in literature.