Staff Bio
Reynolds M Salerno, PhD, is the director for the Office of Laboratory Systems and Response
Role at ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø
Dr. Salerno provides high-level oversight and coordination of critical laboratory science policies and operations, as well as management of laboratory safety and quality within ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø. He also serves as the interface between ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø and the clinical and public health laboratory and testing community for public health responses to disease outbreaks and harmful exposures.
Dr. Salerno works to strengthen the U.S. clinical and public health laboratory systems by continually improving quality and safety, informatics and data science, workforce competency, and response readiness.
Previous experience
Prior to these roles, Dr. Salerno served as the Director of ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø’s Division of Laboratory Systems for more than eight years. He also served as lead of ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø's Expansion of Screening and Diagnostics Task Force for the COVID-19 Response, co-lead of ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø's Laboratory and Testing Task Force for the COVID-19 Response, and senior advisor for laboratory and testing for ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø's Mpox response. He represents ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø on the HHS Testing Coordination Group, the Tri-Agency Task Force for Emergency Diagnostics, and the Federal Interagency Working Group on Improving Diagnostic Safety and Quality in Healthcare.
Before joining ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø in January 2016, Dr. Salerno had a 17-year career at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, NM, where he oversaw research in Sandia's biological laboratories and supported the U.S. government's global health security agenda as a technical adviser to hundreds of laboratories in over 50 countries. He was the lead author of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) laboratory biorisk management standard (ISO 35001, 2019) and the co-author of Laboratory Biorisk Management: Biosafety and Biosecurity (CRC Press, 2015) and Laboratory Biosecurity Handbook (CRC Press, 2007).