From the Class of ’94 to the Department of Defense and home to Maine
By Kathryn Olmstead
FOR ALICE REYNOLDS BRIONES ’94, enlisting in the military after graduating from Hampden Academy in 1990 was a way to pay for college. Little did she know that entering the University of Maine clinical laboratory sciences program would begin a career leading to a position overseeing more than 300 military and civilian personnel providing comprehensive forensic investigative services for the Department of Defense and other federal agencies.
Nor could she have foreseen that, after retiring as the first woman director of the Armed Forces Medical Examiner Systems, the world’s only global medical examiner system, she would return to Maine as its chief medical examiner, responsible for the office investigating and determining the causes of approximately 2,000 deaths in the state each year.
“I was working three jobs and living in the library,” she recalled of her days as a UMaine student paying for her schooling. “I couldn’t have asked for a better education. All the science programs were so strong; they prepared me well for med school courses. UMaine could have a medical program.” She appreciated the multi-disciplinary approach and valuable hands-on experience. “The professors were top-notch,” she said, naming Dr. Susan Hunter, who later became UMaine’s president, as her favorite.
In the middle of her freshman year, the Army pulled her from the classroom and sent her to Texas to complete training as a combat medic for Operation Desert Storm. While she was awaiting deployment in Fort Devens, Massachusetts, the Gulf War ended, prompting her to quip in a Bangor Daily News (BDN ) interview that the only desert she saw was in Texas.
Back at UMaine by summer 1991, she was grateful she could take the dreaded organic chemistry course in summer school and get it over with in five weeks. And thanks to additional advanced placement credits she was able to graduate on time in 1994.
The problem after she graduated was medical technologists in the Bangor area liked their jobs so much, she couldn’t find one. “People didn’t move. There were no jobs locally.”
She worked at Eastern Maine Medical Center as a phlebotomist during college to help pay for school and afterward because there were no medical technology jobs. Then she moved to Baltimore, Maryland, as a night shift med tech at Doctor’s Community Hospital. In 1992, she met the man who would become her husband. Jesus Briones was an active-duty combat medic in the Army at Fort Meade, Maryland, when then Alice Reynolds had an occasion to start an IV on him. “It did not go well,” she recalled, but the relationship bloomed.
Shifting from Army to Air Force, she earned a commission as a second lieutenant biomedical sciences corps officer in October 1995. Her first assignment was Luke Air Force Base in Arizona, where she became chief of laboratory services. In 1999, she was called back east and became chief lab manager at Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts.
Working for pathologists ignited an interest in forensics. “I met a Navy hospital pathologist named Katherine Waters, now at the VA in Togus, who encouraged me to apply for med school. I didn’t expect to get in.” She not only got in, she received an Air Force scholarship.
Even though she had to give up her commission as a medical corps officer, she earned her Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine degree in 2005 from Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine in Erie, Pennsylvania. “I went from a captain to a second lieutenant, but I got back to major rank in 2005.” She was not only re-commissioned as a Major, but also received the Military Service Leadership award for outstanding service to the college and the country upon graduation in June 2005.
BRIONES’ INTEREST in forensic pathology intensified during her residency in clinical and anatomic pathology at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, New York. Rotations with the medical examiner and experience with co-workers inspired her to complete a forensic pathology fellowship in 2009 with the New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator in Albuquerque. She trained under world-renowned expert Dr. Russ Zumwalt and became one of only 450–500 board-certified forensic pathologists in the world. “It was an intense year with great mentors,” she said, stressing the current “dire shortage in the work force.”
In 2010, she joined the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System (AFMES) as a junior deputy medical examiner, and became director of the Department of Defense Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory in 2014. In this position, she was part of a team working to identify the remains of 388 servicemen who perished on the USS Oklahoma when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941. The remains were buried in graves marked “unknown” at a cemetery in Honolulu until 2015, when they were disinterred and sent to Briones’ lab at Dover AFB in Delaware. Pathologists matched DNA from the bones of the victims with samples provided by family members. Once identified, they were returned to their families for burial with full military honors.
“I take pride in the fact that we have the expertise and science to provide answers to the families after all these years,” she told a BDN reporter at the outset of the project.
In 2017, she was promoted to deputy director armed forces medical examiner. In 2020 she advanced to Director, the first woman to hold the position. Acknowledging that women leaders in the military face challenges, Briones credits her “red-headed stubbornness” with her success. “Facts and data convince people. You can overcome challenges with data. I hope I paved the path for others.” After 14 years at Dover AFB, she retired as a U.S. Air Force Colonel September 1, 2023.
THE NEXT MONTH she was a keynote speaker at a conference in Maine, thanks to a UMaine classmate. Leigh Bradstreet BelAir ’94, director of the Medical Laboratory Technology (MLT) program at the University of Maine-Presque Isle, thought Briones would be an inspiring speaker for the 2023 Northeast Laboratory Conference in Portland. As a member of the program committee for the conference attended by lab professionals and students, BelAir reached out to her long-time friend to come to Maine and tell how her medical technology degree prepared her for her career. “I invited her to return to her roots and tell her story,” BelAir said. “She was the concluding keynote speaker.”
As she left the podium, Briones was approached by Guillermo G. Martinez- Torres, president and chief physician executive for NorDx Laboratories in Scarborough, asking for her resume. Soon she received an invitation from the governor’s office to complete an application for chief medical examiner. After an interview with a panel from the attorney general’s office (“on the coldest day in December”), Governor Janet Mills interviewed her on Zoom, announced her appointment in April, and swore her in as Maine’s Chief Medical Examiner in July 15, 2024.
“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 announcing her appointment. “I am pleased to welcome Dr. Briones home to Maine and thank her for her service in this critical role.”
“I hope I can keep up the great work of my predecessors,” Briones said in a recent interview. “The passion and dedication of the staff impressed me. They’re here for the long haul.” Commenting on the shift from federal to state experience, she says “I’m in receive mode. I have a lot to learn.” She is excited about the new medical examiner building in Augusta and the potential for new and better X-ray equipment. “It’s amazing they’ve done so well with what they have.”
Briones brings back to Maine a passion for forensic pathology she hopes will inspire the next generation to pursue careers in the field. She wants the public to understand how medical examiners give back to the living.
“The information we provide can prevent death,” she said, citing common protective warnings and regulations, from placement of child car seats to elimination of dangling cords on window shades.
“Marketing warnings from autopsy data affect people every day.”
Moving back to Maine brings Briones, her husband, Jesus, and their 12-year old daughter, Autumn, closer to her mother in Dixmont. “I wish my dad were here to meet my daughter, see these accomplishments,” she said. Both her parents, Catherine Deperry Reynolds ’72 and the late Bruce D. Reynolds ’70, ’71G, earned their degrees at UMaine.
“You see the world, then you come back home,” she said, noting how things fall into place. “Maine has so much to offer. It’s nice to be serving the state, giving back to Maine.”
In Autumn’s words: “Mom, everyone is so nice.”