Since 1960, Dr. Drell has been a leader in providing essential technical advice to the government on national security issues. A faculty member of Stanford University since 1956, he is currently professor of Theoretical Physics (Emeritus) at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (of which he was also deputy director until retiring in 1998), and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford. As a government advisor, he served as a member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board from, 1993 to 2001; is an active member of the group of scientific advisors called JASON, and is an advisor to Los Alamos National Laboratory.

He is a member of the following professional and honorary societies: fellow and former president of the American Physical Society, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society and the Council on Foreign Relations. His most recent awards in the year 2000-01 include the Enrico Fermi Award, the government's oldest award for science and technology, presented by the President and the secretary of energy; the National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal, the highest award bestowed by the U.S. Intelligence Community; designation by the National Reconnaissance Office as one of ten scientists who are "Founders of national reconnaissance as a space discipline"; and the Heinz R. Pagels Human Rights of Scientists Award by the New York Academy of Science.