Brandon del Pozo, PhD, MPA, MA, is an assistant professor at Brown University. He conducts NIH-funded research about public health, public safety, and justice, focusing on the overdose crisis, and violence.
Prior to his research, del Pozo served as a police officer and soldier. He spent 19 years in the New York City Police Department, where he started on patrol in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, commanded two patrol precincts, served as an intelligence liaison in Amman, Jordan, and led a unit in the police commissioner's office. He also spent four years as Chief of Police of Burlington, Vermont, where he directed the city's interdisciplinary response to the opioid crisis, an effort associated with a substantial and sustained reduction in opioid overdose deaths. He was the 2016 recipient of the Police Executive Research Forum's Gary Hayes Award for excellence in police leadership, and is an elected member of the national Council on Criminal Justice. He also served for eight years as an infantry officer in the US Army National Guard in New York, New Hampshire, Vermont, and on active duty after 9/11.
Dr. del Pozo's popular writing has been featured in The New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Philadelphia Inquirer, Chicago Tribune, Vital City, and the New York Daily News. His book, The Police and the State: Security, Social Cooperation, and the Public Good, was published in December of 2022 by Cambridge University Press.