Designated Federal Officer

Reynolds M. Salerno, Ph.D
Director
Division of Laboratory Systems
Center for Laboratory Systems and Response
Office of Laboratory Science and Safety
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Dr. Salerno is the Director of the Division of Laboratory Systems at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He is also the Designated Federal Officer of the U.S. Clinical Laboratory Improvement Advisory Committee. His division at CDC works to strengthen the U.S. clinical and public health laboratory systems by continually improving quality and safety, informatics and data science, and workforce competency. Dr. Salerno’s technical expertise is laboratory biorisk management, and he is currently the lead expert for preparing the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) laboratory biorisk management standard (ISO 35001). Before joining CDC 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 US government’s global health security agenda as a technical adviser to hundreds of laboratories in over 50 countries. He is co-author of Laboratory Biosecurity Handbook (CRC Press, 2007), and co-editor of Laboratory Biorisk Management (CRC Press, 2015). Dr. Salerno has served on the Board of the International Federation of Biosafety Associations, the US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, the US Defense Science Board’s Task Force on Deterring, Preventing, and Responding to the Threat or Use of Weapons of Mass Destruction, and as an advisor to the World Health Organization. He is a member of the American Society for Microbiology, the American Biological Safety Association, and the Association for Public Health Laboratories.