As professor of neurobiology at Cornell University, she developed quantitative electron microscopic autoradiography as a means to investigate the neuromuscular junction.

She was an undergraduate student at Hunter College, where she was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and graduated summa cum laude.

Salpeter moved to Cornell University for her doctoral studies, where she earned a PhD under the supervision of Howard Liddell.

[2] Neurobiology was an emerging field at the start of Salpeter's research career, and she decided to concentrate her efforts on the neuromuscular junction.

[1] The neuromuscular junction is a synapse that controls all voluntary movement, the formation of which was extensively investigated by Salpeter throughout her research career.