Frieman is Senior Vice President of Science and Technology at Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). He is also Research Professor and Director Emeritus at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, UC San Diego. He received his Ph.D. from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn. He was professor of Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University and held key positions at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.

He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Physical Society. His awards include the James Clerk Maxwell Prize, American Physical Society, 2002; the Department of Energy Distinguished Service Medal; the Richtmyer Award from the American Association of Physics Teachers, 1983; and John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow, 1970.