Dr. Denise Paone is the Senior Director of Research and Surveillance in the Bureau of Alcohol and Drug Use Prevention, Care and Treatment at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. She received her master's and doctoral degrees from Columbia University and has more than 25 years of experience in the fields of public health, harm reduction and substance use research. Before joining city government, Paone served as Director of Research at Beth Israel Chemical Dependency Institute, where she conducted several local, national and international drug and syringe exchange program evaluation studies. Paone is currently leading city-wide substance use and overdose surveillance, as well as conducting drug-related morbidity and mortality studies with an emphasis on overdose deaths and the fentanyl-driven opioid epidemic. She co-leads the real-time drug surveillance project RxStat, an innovative collaboration between public health and public safety that serves as a national model for jurisdictions struggling with high rates of drug overdose. Paone is a Distinguished Scholar affiliated with the CUNY School of Public Health, and the former chair of the National Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists overdose subcommittee. She has published numerous research papers and peer-reviewed articles.