Governor Janet Mills has appointed retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Alice Briones, DO, to serve as Maine’s Chief Medical Examiner.

A native of Hampden, Dr. Briones returns to Maine after a distinguished military career culminating as the first woman to lead the U.S. Armed Forces Medical Examiner System (AFMES).

As director of AFMES, Dr. Briones was the Chief Medical Examiner responsible for overseeing more than 300 military and civilian personnel that provide the Department of Defense and other federal agencies with comprehensive forensic investigative services. AFMES, headquartered at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, is the only worldwide medical examiner system.

Dr. Briones joined the Office of the Medical Examiner this week in a part-time status and will begin full-time service as Chief Medical Examiner in June after her family completes their relocation to Maine.

“With experience leading the world’s only global medical examiner system, Dr. Briones is incredibly qualified to serve as Maine’s next Chief Medical Examiner,” said Governor Janet Mills, in a news release. “I am pleased to welcome Dr. Briones home to Maine and thank her for her service in this critical role.”

“I am looking forward to bringing my family back to Maine, giving back to Maine, and continuing the great forensic practices already established within the Maine Office of the Chief Medical Examiner,” said Dr. Alice Briones.

“Governor Mills has recruited and secured an extremely talented candidate for this critical role,” said Attorney General Aaron Frey. “Dr. Briones will make an exceptional new Chief and we are grateful to have her serving the people of Maine.”

Briones, a recipient of the U.S. Air Force Health Profession Scholarship, earned her Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine from Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine in Erie, Pennsylvania in 2005.

She completed a residency in Clinical and Anatomic Pathology at the University of Rochester Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, New York in 2009, and a Forensic Pathology Fellowship with the New Mexico Office of the Medical Examiner in 2010.

Briones enlisted in the U.S. Army as a Combat Medic in 1990 and completed basic training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. After earning a Bachelor of Arts in Clinical Laboratory Medicine and certification as a Medical Technologist from the University of Maine in 1994, she was commissioned in the U.S. Air Force as a biomedical sciences corps laboratory officer.

During her Air Force service, Dr. Briones served as assistant chief of lab operations and section commander at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona and chief of lab operations at Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts.

Dr. Briones joined AFMES in 2010 as a junior deputy medical examiner. Then moved on to be the Director of the Department of Defense Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory.

In 2017, she was elevated to deputy chief Armed Forces medical examiner, before being promoted to serve as the first woman director/chief in 2020.

The Office of Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) is a statewide system charged with the investigation of sudden, unexpected, and violent deaths.