[2] With national and international honors and recognition, she has supervised 11 students and has 28 academic descendants as of March 2024.

Her work with Maurice Auslander now forms the part of the study of Artinian algebras known as Auslander–Reiten theory.

This theory utilizes such concepts as almost-split sequences and Auslander-Reiten quivers, which were developed in a series of papers.

[12] In 2014, the Norwegian King appointed Reiten as commander of the Order of St. Olav "for her work as a mathematician".

[13] She is the namesake of the IDUN: From PhD to Professor program at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology Faculty of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, which aimed at "increasing the number of female scientists in top positions at NTNU's Faculty of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering.