Dallas County has appointed Dr. Jessica Dwyer to lead the Dallas County Southwestern Institute of Forensic Sciences (SWIFS). SWIFS comprises the Dallas County Medical Examiner’s Office and Criminal Investigation Laboratory. Dwyer will be the first woman to serve as director of the institute since its inception. Dwyer is replacing Dr. Jeffrey “Jody” Barnard, who will retire on Nov. 1 after 37 years. Our partners at The Dallas Morning News reported, “Dwyer first joined the Dallas County’s medical examiner office in 2017, serving as both a staff medical examiner and assistant professor in forensic pathology at UT Southwestern Medical Center. She was promoted to deputy chief medical examiner last year.” The county announced that Dwyer is a fifth-generation Texan who will bring extensive forensic pathology experience to the department. She earned a bachelor of science at Texas A&M University and a medical degree from the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. Her biography at UTSW said that after graduating from medical school, she completed a four-year anatomic and clinical pathology residency at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Just before moving to Dallas, Dwyer spent a year with the Medical Examiner of Allegheny County in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Dwyer has also been published in various medical journals at least a half-dozen times and she is a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society.