Grace Ngai graduated from Brown University (Sc.B) and Johns Hopkins University (MSE, PhD) in the United States. Since starting her career at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, she has successfully pioneered several teaching initiatives, one of the most prominent being service-learning. Together with her team, she proposed one of the first service-learning subjects at PolyU. This subject has brought students on technology-themed service projects in Hong Kong, Mainland China, Cambodia, Myanmar, the Philippines, South Africa, and Rwanda. Many projects were held during the COVID-19 pandemic when traditional face-to-face teaching and travel was not possible, and innovative means had to be devised to allow students to keep learning and serving.

Grace and the Service-Learning and Leadership Office have been instrumental in supporting and promoting PolyU’s service-learning initiative. She was the founding coordinator of the Sub-committee on Service-Learning Subjects, which oversees the approval and offering of all service-learning subjects, and the co-facilitator of the Community of Practice in Service-Learning. They have initiated professional development programmes that engage faculty on a spectrum of topics from teaching service-learning to conducting scholarly work in service-learning.

PolyU's service-learning programme has expanded over the years. From 6 subjects and 200 students in 2012, to today’s over 60 regularly offered subjects catering to over 4,500 students yearly. As a result of her work, her team was the recipient of the Hong Kong University Grants Committee Teaching Award in 2016, and PolyU's service-learning programme was awarded the "Teaching and Learning Strategy of the Year" by the Times Higher Education Awards Asia 2022.