St Aloysius College inaugurates Certificate Courses

The Department of Chemistry, St Aloysius College (Autonomous) in association with Chemalgam Association organized the inaugural ceremony of the Certificate Courses for the year 2021-22, which are jointly coordinated by the Departments of UG and PG Chemistry. The occasion was graced by the presence of the Chief Guest Prof Cletus DSouza, Principal, Rev Dr Praveen Martis SJ, Dr Richard Gonsalves and Dr John Edward DSilva, Directors.

The UG and PG departments jointly offer 11 online certificate courses namely, Spectral Interpretation of Organic Compounds, Culinary Chemistry - Everyday Chemistry of Cooking, Cosmetic Chemistry, Reagents in Organic Synthesis, Molecular Spectroscopy: A Theoretical Approach, Separation Techniques in Chemical Analysis, Instrumental Methods & Separation Techniques in Chemical Analysis, Forensic Chemistry – Scientific Approach to Crime Investigations, Online Tools In Chemical Research, Application of Analytical Chemistry in Food Laboratories and Chemistry Drawings using Chemsketch Software.

Dr Ronald Nazareth, HOD, department of Chemistry welcomed the gathering and emphasized the importance of communication technology in education in extracting the best out of students and encouraged students to be a part of the certificate courses.  

The chief guest, Prof Cletus D’Souza discussed about the application of chemistry in forensic sciences taking examples of the case studies performed in his research laboratories while investing criminal cases related to snake venom. He congratulated the department for starting initiatives in organizing certificate courses, which encourage students to engage themselves in curriculum by taking up additional courses apart from their curriculum.

Principal, Rev Dr Praveen Martis SJ highlighted on the quality education provided by the institution and invited the participants to strive for excellence with hard work and commitment. He also encouraged students to contribute to the society by taking examples of alumni of the college, who have contributed to their alma mater in setting up central instrument laboratories for research activities for the benefit of students.

During this program the Department of Chemistry took initiative in felicitating the student achievers for their academic excellence so that they become an inspiration to many others. Students who were recipients of Inspire fellowship and those who secured rankings in IIT-JAM chemistry exams were felicitated.

The program was coordinated by Dr Roshan DSouza and Dr Rachael Natasha Mary. Ms Jyothi Vaz compered the program.

The inaugural program was followed by a distinguished talk by Prof. Roderick Bates from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore on “Scope of Chemistry in Forensic Sciences”. The talk was organized in a blended mode in which more than 600 students participated in both offline and online modes. Prof Bates in his presentation, discussed the general applications of forensic sciences in physical, biological and chemical sciences with many case studies.