Dr. Grotjohn received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Purdue University in 1986. He joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Michigan State University as a faculty member in 1987.

He is currently Professor in the ECE Department where he works on diamond process and device research and development. He served for 9 years as the ECE Department Chairperson and for six years as the R&D Director of the Fraunhofer USA Center for Coatings and Diamond Technologies (now called Fraunhofer USA Center Midwest) located at MSU. His current research activities include diamond deposition reactor design, diamond process R&D for doped and undoped diamond, and diamond device design and development including diodes, transistors, quantum sensors and high energy particle detectors. He is co-founder of Great Lakes Crystal Technologies, a startup company formed in 2019 focused on the manufacturing of high-performance diamond for high-technology applications.