Reid started turning over logs to find salamanders at an early age. While an undergraduate at Duke University, he discovered that he could follow his passion for amphibians by conducting research projects on them. He completed his masters degree at the University of Maryland before returning to Duke for his doctoral degree and postdoctoral work, all focused on amphibian ecology and evolution. Reid joined the faculty at James Madison University in 1988, where he is now a professor of biology. His is credited with the idea of using skin probiotics to combat the lethal chytrid fungus that has decimated amphibian populations, and he has published widely on this topic. These publications can be found at his James Madison University website. Reid was a delegate to the 2005 Amphibian Conservation Summit that led to the development of the Amphibian Conservation Action Plan. His research has received funding from the Thomas F. and Kate Miller Jeffress Memorial Trust, the Mohamed Bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund, and the National Science Foundation. He was recently elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for his research in amphibian microbial ecology and probiotics.