SINGAPORE - Naval Medical Research Unit (NAMRU) INDO PACIFIC held a change of command ceremony at the American ambassador’s residence on July 26.
Capt. Nicholas Martin relieved Capt. Jonathan Stahl as commanding officer of NAMRU INDO PACIFIC in an official ceremony in front of distinguished guests, family, friends, and shipmates. Capt. Franca Jones, commander, Naval Medical Research Command (NMRC), presided over the ceremony.
Jones commented on Stahl’s leadership, lauding the command’s accomplishments in collaboration with its regional partners, and in its response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Stahl assumed command of NAMRU INDO PACIFIC (then NAMRU-2) in 2020, after serving as the command’s executive officer for two years. He oversaw the command’s support to the wider fleet in maintaining readiness in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. That year, the command established a research protocol to evaluate the burden and distribution of past COVID-19 cases among active-duty personnel assigned to locations in the USINDOPACOM area of responsibility (AOR). These efforts to support fleet and U.S. response to COVID-19 has continued throughout Stahl’s time in command, in addition to the command’s other ongoing efforts to support disease and vector surveillance along with support to partner nations in the AOR. In 2023, the command completed a unique study on the necessity for and effectiveness of updated COVID-19 vaccines for the active-duty population.
“It has been my privilege to work with the staff of NAMRU INDO PACIFIC for the past six years,” Stahl said, “and I am personally grateful for your tremendous efforts. The resilience and strength you have demonstrated is remarkable, and I am proud to have been on your team.”
The ceremony also marked Stahl’s retirement after 30 years of service to the U.S. Navy. Stahl entered service in 1994, after graduating from Northwestern University Dental School with a Doctor of Dental Surgery. In 2008, he was appointed as Navy Medicine’s specialty leader for Preventive Dentistry, a position he would hold until 2012. In 2013, he completed a PhD in oral and craniofacial sciences, while assigned to the University of California San Francisco. After earning his PhD, Stahl spent 6 years at NAMRU SAN ANTONIO as a principal investigator. In 2018, he joined NAMRU INDO PACIFIC as their executive officer.
Before assuming command of NAMRU INDO PACIFIC, Martin served as the executive officer for NAMRU EURAFCENT from 2022 to 2024. Martin commissioned as a lieutenant junior grade in the U.S. Navy in 2003, after completing a Master of Science in Environmental Science and Health. From 2020 to 2022, while part of the Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery (BUMED), Martin coordinated COVID-19 vaccine distribution for the Department of the Navy. Martin also served as Navy Medicine’s environmental health officer specialty leader, overseeing a community of more than 100 public health professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We sit, literally and figuratively, at the nexus of diplomacy, health security and infectious disease research,” Martin observed. “There can be tension at this point of conversion, but there is also opportunity to promote the important and impactful work we do with our partners while advancing our core mission…research to detect, prevent and treat infectious disease in the region.”
“I am confident that together, with our shared sense of purpose and determination, we will achieve great things,” Martin added.
NAMRU INDO PACIFIC conducts research in cooperation with host nations in Australia, Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Mongolia, Papua New Guinea, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam to improve global health, ensure military force health protection and address infectious diseases such as malaria, dengue fever virus and gastro-intestinal pathogens.
Story originally posted on DVIDS:
NAMRU INDO PACIFIC Holds Change of Command