[3][1][5] Susan Carter described Drinkwater as "a forerunner" in research on relative energy deficiency in sport.
[6] Drinkwater worked at the University of California, Santa Barbara Institute of Environmental Stress and the University of Washington Department of Kinesiology, before assuming leadership of the Pacific Medical Center Osteoporosis Research Laboratory [3] In 1988, she became the first woman president of the American College of Sports Medicine, serving until 1989.
[3] In addition to serving as vice-president and as a trustee, she also helped with increasing Black representation in the ACSM's committees and was a member of fifteen of them.
[3] She won the 2014 President's Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition Lifetime Achievement Award.
[1] She was also a camp counselor, licensed to pilot light aircraft, and a scuba instructor, and she played golf and collected rocks as hobbies.