 Reed earned his Ph.D. in 1986 from McGill, under the supervision of Vašek Chvátal.Before returning to McGill as a Canada Research Chair, Reed held positions at the University of Waterloo, Carnegie Mellon University, and the French National Centre for Scientific Research.Reed was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2009, and is the recipient of the 2013 CRM-Fields-PIMS Prize.