Ellie Garrett, JD, serves as deputy director of the Office of the Medical Director at the Minnesota Department of Human Services. Among other things, she oversees a wide range of opioid-related initiatives, including the Minnesota Opioid Prescribing Improvement Program and multiple federally funded efforts to improve opioid use disorder treatment quality and access. Prior to joining DHS, she maintained a national and regional consulting practice focusing on public engagement on health policy issues and worked as the associate director for health policy and public health at the Minnesota Center for Health Care Ethics. There she co-directed the Minnesota Pandemic Ethics Project, the nation’s largest state-sponsored public engagement project about pandemic planning. For 16 years she taught a graduate level health policy course at St. Catherine University. She is a past-president of the Minnesota Public Health Association and in 2004 received the Albus Justus Chesley Award for distinguished service to public health in Minnesota.