Persis Drell

Persis Drell
Persis Drell, Provost of Stanford University
Nationality	United States
Fields	Particle Physics
Institutions	Cornell University, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Alma mater	University of California, Berkeley, Wellesley College

Persis S. Drell is an American physicist best known for her expertise in the field of particle physics. She was the director of the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory from 2007 to 2012. She was dean of the Stanford University School of Engineering from 2014 until 2016. Drell became the Provost of Stanford University on February 1, 2017.

The daughter of noted physicist Sidney Drell, Persis Drell grew up on the Stanford University campus. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in mathematics and physics from Wellesley College and a Ph.D. in atomic physics from University of California, Berkeley, studying under Eugene Commins. She completed her postdoctoral work in high-energy physics at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. She joined the physics faculty at Cornell University in 1988.

In 2002, Drell was hired as associate director of research at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (then known as the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center) where she oversaw the BaBar experiment. In 2007, she was named the fourth director of SLAC, succeeding Jonathan M. Dorfan.

In November 2011, she announced her intention to step down as the head of SLAC and return to a position as a faculty member at Stanford.