[1] Edelstein's contributions to MRI technology include pulse sequence optimization, radio-frequency-coil and gradient-coil design, circuitry improvements, high field imaging, acoustic noise reduction, and the NMR Phased Array.

He received a Bachelor of Science in physics from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1965, graduating summa cum laude.

[1] Academic awards include the Edmund James Scholar and the 1965 Brahana Prize in Mathematics at the University of Illinois, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

[1] He also served as a visiting scientist at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York and a senior research associate at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio.

Edelstein suggested that his calculations showed the crew of the Starship Enterprise would have suffered this fate if their travels had not been fiction.