Dr. Salerno completed his BS in Biological Engineering at Cornell University, and his MD and PhD in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Virginia as part of the Medical Scientist Training Program. He then completed the American Board of Internal Medicine Research Pathway with an Internal Medicine residency at Stanford University, and his general cardiology fellowship at Duke University Medical Center. During his time at Duke he completed a dedicated year in cardiovascular MRI at the Duke Cardiovascular MR Imaging Center. He returned to UVA in 2008 to complete a 2-year advanced cardiovascular imaging fellowship where he trained in CMR and cardiovascular CTA. He achieved COCATS Level III training in all cardiovascular imaging modalities (Echo, Nuclear, CMR, CCT), and is board certified in Echocardiography and Nuclear Cardiology. He served as faculty at UVA in Cardiology, Radiology, and Biomedical Engineering from 2010-2021 where he was the Director of Cardiac MRI and the Medical Director of Echocardiography, before returning to Stanford to be the Section Chief of Cardiac Imaging and the Medical Director of Echocardiography. He has joined UCSF as a Professor of Medicine and Radiology and the Section Chief of Echocardiography and Cardiac Imaging, and will serve as the Director of Multimodality Cardiovascular Imaging.

His research involves the development and evaluation of novel MRI pulse sequences and techniques to improve the clinical utility of CMR imaging. The current focus of the research is on quantitative myocardial perfusion imaging, quantitative imaging of myocardial fibrosis, rapid free-breathing and self-gated imaging, and deep learning for image reconstruction and post-processing. His laboratory includes undergraduate and graduate engineering students as well as clinical cardiovascular imaging fellows to bring new advances into clinical practice. Dr. Salerno has been in the field of MRI for 30 years and holds multiple patents related to the development and application of novel pulse sequences for MRI. He has received numerous research awards, and has published extensively in the areas of MRI, cardiovascular MRI and multi-modality cardiovascular imaging. His research has been supported by the AHA and the National Institutes of health. He is an associate editor for JACC Cardiovascular Imaging.