Photo By Tommy Lamkin | SILVER SPRING, Md. (Aug. 13, 2025) Capt. Franca Jones, commander, Naval Medical...... read more read more
SILVER SPRING, Md. – Naval Medical Research Command (NMRC) held a Change of Command ceremony in the Daniel K. Inouye building on the Forest Glen Annex on 13 Aug.
Capt. Franca Jones was relieved as commander of NMRC, and of all Navy Medicine Research & Development (NMR&D), by Capt. Eric Welsh in an official ceremony in front of staff, family, friends and several distinguished guests.
During the ceremony, Jones remarked upon both the successes NMRC has seen in recent years, as well as the challenges and opportunities ahead. Jones’s tenure as NMRC commander saw significant advances in the development of countermeasures to infectious diseases affecting service member performance, advances in tracking brain injury as a result of blast exposure and an expansion of NMR&D cooperation with international partners on behalf of warfighter health and readiness.
“I am impressed with the adversity the people of this command have had overcome on behalf of the mission,” Jones said. “I am proud of the people who make NMRC the driving force of Medical R&D that it is. But most of all, I am grateful. Grateful for your dedication to the mission, to the Navy, to our country and to each other.”
“Each and every one of you here today, and in our fellow commands across the country and the globe, have dedicated your lives to keeping the Nation’s defenders fit, healthy, and ready to complete the mission,” Jones added, “whenever and wherever it brings us. Who wouldn’t want to be part of a team dedicated to that mission.”
Welsh, previously the commanding officer of Naval Health Research Center (NHRC), a command within NMR&D, also expressed gratitude to the staff at NMRC, and enthusiasm for his new role.
“It is humbling and an honor to command this great organization,” Welsh remarked. “Capt. Jones has worked tirelessly and achieved unsurpassed results with your expertise.”
During Welsh’s tenure as commanding officer for NHRC, another command within NMR&D, the command expanded mental and behavioral health research efforts for suicide prevention, intervention support to operational commands, and prevention of adverse behavioral and mental health outcomes. This work has informed clinical practice and treatment for traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic stress disorder, major depressive disorder and suicidality among at-risk service members.
NMRC, headquarters of Navy Medicine Research & Development, is engaged in a broad spectrum of activity from basic science in the laboratory to field studies in austere and remote areas of the world to investigations in operational environments. In support of Navy, Marine Corps and joint U.S. warfighter health, readiness and lethality, researchers study infectious diseases, biological warfare detection and defense, combat casualty care, environmental health concerns, aerospace and undersea medicine, operational mission support and epidemiology.
NMR&D, a global collective of eight commands, conducts research in support of Navy, Marine Corps and joint U.S. warfighter health, readiness and lethality, across a broad spectrum of activity from basic science in the laboratory to field studies in austere and remote areas of the world to investigations in operational environments. NMR&D studies infectious diseases, biological warfare detection and defense, combat casualty care, environmental health concerns, directed energy health effects, aerospace and undersea medicine, medical modeling, simulation, operational mission support, epidemiology and behavioral sciences.
| Date Taken: | 08.14.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 08.14.2025 13:45 |
| Story ID: | 545636 |
| Location: | SILVER SPRING, MARYLAND, US |
| Web Views: | 66 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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