Surgeon Vice Admiral S. Shankar, Director General Medical Services (Navy) 

An alumnus and Gold Medalist of AFMC Pune, with advanced training from AIIMS and FRCP (Glasgow), the Admiral brings 38 years of distinguished clinical expertise in Rheumatology and Internal Medicine. Beyond his clinical career, he is an avid researcher – one of the few Indian scientists to publish in Nature – with over 165 publications spanning AI in healthcare, proteomics, and mathematical epidemiology. 

His landmark contributions include spearheading the Defence Forces HIV policy and leading the pivotal “VIN-WIN” study, which demonstrated the high effectiveness of the COVISHIELD vaccine across 1.6 million personnel. A highly decorated officer, his honors include the MN Sen Oration (ICMR) and the General Amir Chand Award.

Having held senior appointments across the Defence Forces, including DCIDS (Med) at HQ IDS, Command of Command Hospital Air Force, Bengaluru, and Principal Medical Officer Eastern Air Command, he brings a wealth of strategic policy and operational experience to his current role.

He comes from a unique tri-service family, his father  Wg Cdr VG Subramanian (Retd) having served in the Air Force and he along with his two brothers having served in Army, Navy and Air Force. He balances his commitment to military medicine with a deep passion for mathematics, music, and culinary arts