As Chief Medical Examiner, Hawkes feels perfectly at ease with a room filled with death. Raised in Harlem, Dr. Hawkes was a child prodigy who graduated at eighteen years old, and By twenty-four was board-licenced surgeon.

Hawkes left the operating room, retreating the safety of a medical examiner's office. In season two, he yet again, this time out of the coroner's office to the field as a CSI! He learns from all of the CSI's he works around as they are not only his friends but also people that have his back when he needs it.