Reid is an award-winning biographer of mathematicians. Her most recent book, Julia: A Life in Mathematics (Mathematical Association of America, 1997), is about her sister, Julia Bowman Robinson, the first woman mathematician elected to the National Academy of Sciences and the first woman to serve as president of the American Mathematical Society. The book is the basis for the documentary film Julia Robinson and the Solving of Hilbert’s Tenth Problem.

Reid received the Mathematical Association of America’s Bechenbach Prize for her book The Search for E.T. Bell (Mathematical Association of America, 1993), which also received an honorable mention from the Association of American Publishers, Professional and Scholarly Division, for the best book on mathematics in 1993. In January 1998, she received the Communications Award from the Joint Policy Board of Mathematics.

The annual Sampson Lecture at Bates is named in honor of Richard W. Sampson of Lewiston, a member of the Bates faculty from 1952 until his retirement as professor of mathematics in 1990.