[1] Reis received an MA in Latin philology from Bryn Mawr College in 1965, and earned a PhD in German at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in 1970 with a dissertation entitled "Phonological theory and historical phonology.
Untersuchungen am Beispiel der Dehnungs- und Kürzungsvorgänge im Deutschen').
Reis additionally held many visiting positions, including at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1972-1973), Université de Paris VIII (1979-1980, 1982-1983), and the Centre General Linguistics (ZAS) in Berlin, Germany (1999-2000).
In 2010, Reis was named Honorary Professor at the Institute for German Language and Linguistics at the Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany.
[5] In 2016, Reis was awarded the Wilhelm von Humboldt Prize for lifetime achievement in Germany.