A Hampden native has been tapped to lead the Maine medical examiner’s office.
Gov. Janet Mills announced Friday that retired U.S. Air Force Col. Alice Briones will succeed Mark Flomenbaum as chief medical examiner.
Briones enlisted in the U.S. Army as a combat medic in 1990 and completed her basic training at Fort Jackson in South Carolina.
She earned a Bachelor of Arts in clinical laboratory medicine and was certified as a medical technologist at the University of Maine in Orono in 1994. Afterward, she became a biomedical sciences corps laboratory officer in the U.S. Air Force.
Briones went on to earn a doctorate of osteopathic medicine in 2005 from Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine in Erie, Pennsylvania. She completed a residency in 2009 at University of Rochester Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, New York, and a forensic pathology fellowship at the New Mexico medical examiner’s office in 2010.
“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,” Mills said in a statement. “I am pleased to welcome Dr. Briones home to Maine and thank her for her service in this critical role.”
Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey, whose office oversees medical examiners, called Briones an “extremely talented candidate,” saying that she will “make an exceptional” chief medical examiner.
Briones joined the U.S. Armed Forces Medical Examiner System in 2010. She quickly rose through the ranks until becoming its director in 2020, the first woman to ever hold that role. As director, she oversaw a 300-person workforce providing the U.S. Department of Defense and other federal agencies with forensic investigative services.
“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,” Briones said in a statement.
Briones is taking over following the departure of Flomenbaum, who retired this year after a decade serving as the state’s chief medical examiner. During his tenure, the Maine medical examiner’s office was recognized as one of the best in the nation, but he also had his credibility questioned by a Connecticut judge and he was reprimanded for giving an inappropriate gift to a departing staffer.
Flomenbaum was nationally recognized for his work on 9/11, but he also was fired as Massachusetts’ chief medical examiner in 2007 after his office lost a body.
He was appointed by Gov. Paul LePage. Flomenbaum in 2021 indicated he would not seek reappointment.