[3] As a researcher, he developed a well known statistical technique for estimating the ED-50, and his work with epidemiologist Wade Hampton Frost on the Reed–Frost epidemic models also remains well known.
[5] Reed retired from the Hopkins faculty in June 1953, only to be recalled later that summer to serve as president when Detlev Bronk departed for Rockefeller University.
In September 1953, he returned to Baltimore from his home in New Hampshire to accept the presidency, stating, "For 30-odd years, I have had a glorious time at the Hopkins.
He oversaw the end of the Owen Lattimore espionage indictments (all charges were dropped in 1955), and new construction on the various Hopkins campuses, while still keeping a hand in biostatistics.
Returning to his beloved New Hampshire farm, he again took up his hobbies of woodworking, painting, hiking and camping, and enjoyed an active retirement until his death in 1966.