Elissia Conlon is the Special Advisor to the Deputy Commissioner of Forensic 

Operations and Investigations for the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner 

(OCME) where she provides strategic counsel to key agency leadership in support of 

aligning cross-departmental policy. Elissia is responsible for overall quality assurance 

for the division with direct oversight of the Forensic Quality Control unit, charged with 

providing independent quality assurance over mortuary operations. She serves as the 

agency’s Department of Homeland Security Grant Manager and in this role manages 

multi-million dollar award allocations necessary to sustain and augment the agency’s 

development and implementation of preparedness initiatives. 

Elissia holds a Bachelor of Art’s degree in Physical Anthropology from Hunter College 

of the City of New York (2001). She has served OCME since 2002 first as a contract 

anthropologist on World Trade Center Recovery Operation and later as a planning 

consultant through the Health Resources and Services Administration Bioterrorism 

Hospital Preparedness Program to develop the NYC Pandemic Influenza Surge Plan for 

Managing In-and-Out of Hospital Deaths before formally joining the OCME in 2008. 

While employed at OCME, Elissia was first assigned to the Special Operations Division 

where she focused her experience in mass fatality incident management operations and 

maintains her hazardous materials technician certification. While with the OCME she has 

been instrumental in developing the agency’s mass fatality management planning, 

preparedness, and response capabilities. Between 2009 and 2014 she has served as the 

agency’s Operations Center Manager coordinating information and resources in support 

of mass fatality operations. Elissia supporting the NYC COVID-19 mass fatality response

as the Health Care Facility Body Collection Point Task Force Lead responsible for 

developing policy and coordinating resources to support managing the surge of fatalities

in NYC hospitals. She also supported the COVID-19 Long Term Storage operation and 

demobilization. 

Elissia has participated in various other mass fatality management working groups, such 

as the Mortuary Affairs Science and Technology Working Group and the Scientific 

Working Group for Disaster Victim Identification (SWGDVI). Elissia served as a 

member of the OSAC Disaster Victim Identification Subcommittee (DVI SC) from 2014 

– 2018, as Vice Chair until 2019 and as Chair until 2020 when the DVI SC became a task 

group under the Medicolegal Death Investigation (MDI) SC. Elissia served as a Member 

at Large of the MDI SC continuing to chair the DVI task group before being appointed to 

her current position as chair of the Medicine SAC where she now provides strategic

direction for standards development in Forensic Anthropology, Forensic Odontology, 

Forensic Nursing and Medicolegal Death Investigation. 

Elissia is an Associate Member of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences General 

Section and a subject matter expert on the American Academy of Forensic Sciences 

Standards Board’s Mass Fatality Management and Disaster Victim Identification (MFMDVI) consensus body. 

Elissia was appointed to the FSSB in 2022 and serves as Chair of the Medicine SAC.