Department News

Conference report

Namaskar

Innovation in chemistry teaching and research has crossed the boundaries of multiple branches, emerging with new dimensions of understanding and applications. With this aim the department of chemistry of the IIS University organized a three day national conference, from October 16^th –18^th, 2014, on the “Emerging Areas in Chemical Education & Research and National Convention of Chemistry Teachers (NCCT 2014)” supported by DST. National Convention of chemistry teachers is an annual meeting of the association of chemistry teachers (ACT) which provides a platform to bring together the chemical educators of the country particularly those engaged in higher education sector. The focus of the conference was on emerging trends in all the branches of chemistry including Chemical education, Computational chemistry, Bio-organic chemistry, Synthetic Organic chemistry, Molecular modeling, Green and Medicinal chemistry.

The conference commenced at 10:00 a.m. on 16^th October, 2014 with the inaugural session, seeking the blessings of the almighty in the form of a prayer followed by lighting of the lamp by all the dignitaries on the dais, after which the conference chairperson Dr. Ashok Gupta, Vice-Chancellor, The IIS University, extended a warm welcome to all the resource persons, delegates and students participants.

Prof Pradeep Bhatnagar, Dean, Faculty of science, presented an overview of the science departments of The IIS University.

Prof. S. D. Samant, President, ACT, in his presidential remark highlighted the problems being faced by chemstryl educators in terms of curriculum and delivery.

Prof. D. V. Prabhu, General Secretary, ACT in his address acquainted the audience with the aims and objectives of the ACT and its annual convention.

As we are all aware, association of chemistry teachers has the tradition of honouring one chemistry faculty every year in its convention with ACT Life Time Achievement Award. The faculty has to be from the zone in which NCCT is being organized and should have made exemplary contribution in the field of chemistry in terms of teaching and research. The central zone committee nominated Prof. R. K. Bansal for this prestigious award. In the inauguration ceremony, he was felicitated with a shawl, cash prize of Rs. 11000 and a citation.

In the series of awards Dr Bihari Singh, from A N University Patna was awarded the “Anupam Sinha Best Chemistry Teacher Award” for his contribution in Chemical Sciences. He was felicitated again with the shawl, cash prize and citation.

The second issue of the biannual magazine “Science Spectrum” of the chemical association of the IIS University and third volume of the Journal of science and technology published by the University were released by the dignitaries.

The conference co-convener Prof. R. K. Bansal, Emeritus Professor, The IIS University, introduced the keynote speaker, Padma Vibhushan, Prof. M. M. Sharma and invited him for his address. Prof Sharma delivered his talk on “Innovations in chemical industry”. He emphasized that Chemistry is in everything and everywhere and marked Chemistry as a tool box of the world. He acquainted the audience with various interesting innovations in chemistry like discovery of polymers, artificial diamond, membranes and extraction of aluminum from its ore.

The inaugural session ended with a formal vote of thanks was proposed by conference convener Dr.  Raakhi Gupta.

The inaugural session was followed by 13 technical sessions spread over three days and chaired by luminaries from the field of chemistry.

The first invited lecture was delivered by Prof. Udai Maitra, from IISC Bangalore. He deliberated on the topic “Learning chemistry in the computer age”. He wonderfully highlighted the fact that the teaching can be made interesting by incorporating  learning material available on website in the lectures.

Prof. Savita Ladage from Homi Bhabha institute, Mumbai, introduced chemistry education research in her talk highlighted its significant contribution at the undergraduate and post graduate level.

Role of chemical sciences in environmental engineering research was discussed by Prof. A B Gupta from MNIT, Jaipur in his talk. through different real life examples

The fourth invited lecture was delivered by Prof. S. Chandrasekaran, from IISC Bangalore, on ethics in research and publishing. In his lecture he urged  all active practitioners of scientific research from academic /research institutions to write up their work in the form of manuscripts and get them published in scientific journals of repute. He also retreated that young researchers in particular, should be sensitized about various facets of ethics in research and publishing.

Challenges of old chemical technologies and possibilities of new innovations were discussed by Prof. P. Pramanik, IIT Khargupur in his talk on the second day of the conference He informed all members about the use of methylglyoxal to avoid cancer.

The principles and practices of green chemistry towards the construction of pharmaceutically imperative heterocycles were elaborated by Prof. Anshu Dandiya, Head Department of Chemistry, University of Rajasthan.

Prof R. T. Pardasani, from Central University of Rajasthan, Kishangarh deliberated on the topic, application of computational chemistry in organic synthesis and discussed the mechanistic and stereochemical aspects of cycloaddition and photocycloaddition reactions by computational calculations.

Prof S. Kelkar, Univesity of Pune, discussed about the introduction of Microscale experiments in chemistry curricula through interesting video clips. He also acquainted the audience that the financial burden on institutes can be reduced  with the use of easily accessible and inexpensive new apparatus.  

Prof P. S. Kalsi, from Ludhiana delivered his informative talk on how to teach organic chemistry in 21^st century in the first technical session of the third day of the conference.  Prof A. K. Singh from IIT Bombay not only discussed the bioorganic chemistry of photoreceptors but also focused his lecture on aspects of tertiary education in chemical sciences particularly with regard to model curicullar structure, course contents and pedology.

ACT Lifetime Achievements Awardee Prof. R. K. Bansal delivered a lecture  on the topic “A symbiotic teaching-research relationship for healthy growth of higher education”.

Last technical session was a Panel discussion on the topic “How teaching research linkage can be strengthened in higher education”. Moderator of this session was Prof S. D. Samant panelists Prof. Helen Kavitha, Prof. M. Swaminathan, Prof. Dalip Kumar, Prof. PVS Machi Raju, Prof. D.C. Deka, and Prof. Radha V. Jairam were the panelist.

We are also delighted to share with you that we received very good response from delegates in terms of research paper presentation. The presentations were divided into three categories undergraduate students, teachers and research scholars. These presentations were interspersed in the three day schedule of the conference. In all 17 students presented their posters in U. G. category and 42 teachers and 60 research scholars shared their work through posters. Due to the availability of limited slots 22 teachers and 9 students were able to present their research work orally. We appreciate their contributions.

To encourage scientific research among students and teachers, The IIS University and ACT will award  to 3 Best Oral and 3 Best Poster Presentations in each category. The presentations were evaluated by Hon’ble judges Prof. Sudha Jain, Dr. Neelima Gupta, Dr. Mira H. Uchil, Dr. U.C. Jain, Dr. Shradha Sinha, Dr. S.P. Singh, Dr. D.V. Prabhu, Dr. M.R.R.Prasad, Dr. Raakhi Gupta, Dr. Pragya Sinha and  Dr. Varhsa Goyal. We thank  them for their help and support.

A treat to the eyes and ears of all delegates was the wonderful cultural extravaganza put up by the students of the IIS University on the first day of the conference. Thanks to them.

Executive council meeting and  general body meeting of ACT were also held on the first and second day of the conference respectively.

An overview to share with you is

• 270 delegates registered from all over India.
• one keynote lecture and 11 invited lectures by eminent scientists.
• 31 oral presentations and 118 poster presentations by young scientists and Ph. D students in different technical sessions.

I hope, this conference must have provided excellent academic forum to the researchers, scientists and industry personnel to understand the emerging trends in chemical educational research.

Thank you

Guest Lecture on "100 years of allopathic medicine”