Reid wasn't originally educated in paleontology or botany, she taught physics and maths at the prestigious Cheltenham Ladies College.
[1] It was through her husband, Clement Reid, an experienced botanist and paleontologist, where her interest in prehistoric plant life arose.
[2] It was the two of them who were credited with establishing that "floras could be reliably reconstructed from sources rich in fossil fruiting organs".
[1] Their second book, The Fossil Flora of Tegelen-sur-Meuse, near Venloo, in the Province of Limburg was published in 1907 and is focused on paleobotany, as well as the Pleistocene geological timescale.
Reid and Chandler's studies showed that the land now known as London had at one time been part of a tropical forest.
[2] Reid was awarded the Lyell Medal in 1936,[5] for her accomplishments in the findings of new geological information and innovative techniques.
Reid gratefully received the Murchison Fund in 1919,[3] she published her monograph on Pliocene floras in 1920,[1] only a year later being accepted as a Fellow to the Geological Society of London.