Gruninger studied computer Science and received his Bachelor in 1987 at the University of Alberta, and his Master of Arts in 1989 at the University, where in 2000 he also received his Doctor of Philosophy with a thesis entitled "Logical foundations of shape-based object recognition.".
In 1993 Gruninger started as researcher at the Enterprise Integration Laboratory of the University of Toronto, Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering. Since 1997 he is guest researcher at the Manufacturing Systems Integration Division of the National Institute for Standards and Technology (The National Institute of Standards and Technology). From 2005 to 2010 he was researcher at the Institute for Systems Research at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Since 2010 he is back in Canada as Assistant Professor of Industrial Engineering at the University of Toronto, where he runs the Semantic Technologies Laboratory,
Gruninger"s research interests are in the field of "the design and formal characterization of theories in mathematical logic and their application to problems in manufacturing and enterprise engineering.".
