Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers — Jadavpur University Students' Chapter emblem
I.I.Ch.E. · Jadavpur University Students' Chapter

Department of Chemical Engineering · Jadavpur University · Kolkata

A hundred years of chemists, engineers, and the people they became

India's oldest chemical engineering department has spent over a century turning nervous first-years into scientists, industrialists and quiet leaders of global industry. This is that story so far, told through the teachers who shaped it and the students who carried it forward.

1921Founded
1stIn India
1947I.I.Ch.E. Est.
105Carrying the Legacy.
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TURBULYX — IIChE JU Students' Chapter — Coming Soon poster

Upcoming Event

Introducing TURBULYX

The I.I.Ch.E. Jadavpur University Students' Chapter presents TURBULYX — the department's newest flagship gathering, blending the culture of the department with the discipline of the craft. Expect a mix of academic rigour and the kind of energy that only a chemical engineering campus can bring to a stage.

Flagship Event
Cultural & Academic
Chemical Industry Focus

Follow along for dates and details · @iiche_ju

Acharya Prafulla Chandra Roy
Founding Figure · Chemist · Nationalist

Long before this department existed, A.P.C. Roy was already the reason Indian chemistry had a school to call its own. He discovered mercurous nitrite, built the country's first indigenous research lab in chemistry, and in 1901 founded Bengal Chemical & Pharmaceuticals — India's first pharmaceutical company — almost entirely on his own income.

He believed that a nation gets free by building things, not by collecting degrees. So when the Bengal Technical Institute needed someone to lend a fledgling chemical engineering course credibility and conviction in 1921, he was there.

“I have no sense of success on any large scale on things achieved … but have the sense of having worked, and having found happiness in doing so.”— Life and Experiences of a Bengali Chemist (1932), Roy's own autobiography. He wrote this after a life spent trying to pull his countrymen out of poverty — founding Bengal Chemical to create jobs, organizing famine and flood relief in Bengal for decades, and pushing indigenous industry as the way out of colonial economic ruin.

Where It Began

Built by visionaries,
carried by generations

In 1921, Prof. Hira Lal Roy and Prof. Baneswar Das stood in front of a class that didn't exist anywhere else in the country and started teaching chemical engineering. With Acharya P.C. Roy's backing, that first course at the Bengal Technical Institute — the predecessor of Jadavpur University — became India's first, and one of the oldest chemical engineering departments anywhere in the world.

The decades that followed weren't quiet ones. The department grew up alongside the National Council of Education's push for an education system built by Indians, for Indians, and later lived through the upheaval of the freedom movement and everything that came after it. Through all of it, classes kept happening.

When the Government of West Bengal enacted legislation establishing Jadavpur University on 24th December 1955, the National Council of Education handed over its institutions — this department among them — to the new university, where it has stayed and grown ever since.

A Timeline

One hundred years,
marked in milestones

From a single course at a technical institute to a century-old institution with alumni scattered across the world — the moments that shaped it, in order.

1921
The Department is Founded
A course in chemical engineering begins at the Bengal Technical Institute under Prof. H.L. Roy and Prof. Baneswar Das, backed by Acharya P.C. Roy — India's first.
1947
I.I.Ch.E. is Founded
The Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers is founded on 18th May 1947 — days before independence — with this department at its heart.
1951
First Degrees Conferred
The first Chemical Engineering degrees are awarded — the department's earliest batch of graduates.
1955
Jadavpur University is Established
By an Act of the West Bengal legislature, the NCE's institutions — and this department — become part of the newly formed Jadavpur University.
1966
First PhD (Engineering)
The department confers its first doctoral degree in engineering.
1970
A Department in the Doldrums
The Naxalite movement reaches the campus; classes are disrupted ,students organised .
1978
The Department Steadies Itself
Course reform resumes through the 1970s — Process Instrumentation and Control, Plant Design, Polymer Engineering — and the degree returns to a 4-year structure after 10+2 schooling.
1982
Diamond Jubilee
Sixty years of the department are marked and celebrated with alumni across generations.
1996
Platinum Jubilee
Seventy-five years of continuous teaching and research is commemorated.
2021–23
The Centenary
The department turns 100 in 2021; its Centenary Celebration Programme, 'Chemervescence', is held on 25–27 February 2023, reuniting alumni from across the globe and raising ₹46 lakh for the department.

The People Who Taught Them

Teachers who quietly
built a department

Every alumnus on this page started out sitting in front of a teacher whose name rarely makes the news. A few of the people who shaped this department across a hundred years — the current faculty roster follows below.

Prof. Hira Lal Roy & Prof. Baneswar Das
Founding Faculty, 1921
Built the department's very first course of study from nothing, alongside Acharya P.C. Roy. There was no syllabus to inherit — they wrote the first one.
Decades of Faculty
1940s–1970s
The names behind the changing syllabus rarely got written down, but their choices did: Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics arrived in the 1950s, Applied Kinetics by the late 1950s, and Process Instrumentation & Control, Plant Design and Polymer Engineering through the 1970s. Every one of those decisions was made by a professor standing in front of a blackboard, trying to keep the department current.
Departmental Leadership, 2023
Centenary Celebration Programme, 25–27 February 2023
The department's leadership at the time worked with alumni bodies to get the century-old departmental building repaired in time for the Centenary event, 'Chemervescence'.
Prof. Chiranjib Bhattacharjee
Alumnus & Vice-Chancellor, Jadavpur University (2026)
Trained in this very department before rising to lead the university itself, and has spoken often about how much the department owes to alumni who stay connected to it.

Titles reflect roles held around the department's 2023 Centenary Celebration, updated with 2026 information where confirmed.

The Department Today

The faculty currently
teaching this department

As of 2026, this is the teaching and research faculty of the Department of Chemical Engineering — the people running labs, guiding theses, and standing at the front of the same lecture halls the alumni on this page once sat in.

Dr. Chanchal Mondal
Head of the Department
Prof. Chiranjib Bhattacharjee
Membrane Technology & Separation Processes · Vice-Chancellor, Jadavpur University
Prof. Avijit Bhowal
Professor
Chemical Engineering
Dr. Chanchal Mondal
Associate Professor · HoD
Chemical Engineering
Prof. Chiranjib Bhattacharjee
Professor
Chemical Engineering · Vice-Chancellor, JU
Dr. Debashis Roy
Professor
Chemical Engineering
Prof. Kajari Kargupta
Professor
Chemical Engineering
Dr. Mehabub Rahaman
Associate Professor
Chemical Engineering
Prof. Papita Das
Professor
Chemical Engineering
Dr. Raj Kumar Das
Assistant Professor
Chemical Engineering
Prof. Rajat Chakraborty
Professor
Chemical Engineering
Prof. Ranjana Chowdhury
Professor
Chemical Engineering
Dr. Ranjana Das
Associate Professor
Chemical Engineering
Dr. Ratna Dutta
Associate Professor
Chemical Engineering
Dr. Saswata Bose
Assistant Professor
Chemical Engineering
Dr. Shyamal Roy
Assistant Professor
Chemical Engineering
Dr. Sudeshna Saha
Assistant Professor
Chemical Engineering
Dr. Sujata Sardar
Assistant Professor
Chemical Engineering
Prof. Ujjaini Sarkar
Professor
Chemical Engineering

Faculty roster and designations sourced directly from Jadavpur University's official Department of Chemical Engineering page (jadavpuruniversity.in), current as provided; roles may shift with promotions, retirements or new appointments.

Flagship Events

Four events the chapter
is known for

Every year, the I.I.Ch.E. JU Students' Chapter runs a handful of events that have become fixtures on the department's calendar — where classroom chemical engineering turns into competition, collaboration and a reason for alumni to come back through the door.

Coming Soon
TURBULYX
Culture meets the chemical industry
The chapter's newest flagship event — a cultural and academic gathering built around the chemical industry itself, pairing the technical depth the department is known for with the kind of programming that turns a department event into a campus-wide occasion.
Flagship Event
ChemBRIDGE
Where classroom and industry meet
The chapter's bridge-building event in the truest sense — talks, panels and interactions that connect students directly with practising engineers, researchers and alumni working across the chemical and process industries. ChemBRIDGE exists to close the gap between what's taught in the department and what the profession actually looks like on the other side.
Flagship Event
INNOVA
Ideas, prototypes, and process thinking
The chapter's platform for original thinking — a space for students to pitch process innovations, design concepts and applied projects that go beyond the syllabus. INNOVA rewards the kind of curiosity that eventually turns into the research and start-ups the department's alumni are known for.
Flagship Event
Chemathlon
A decathlon for chemical engineers
Part technical fest, part competition series — Chemathlon puts core chemical engineering skills to the test across multiple events and challenges, drawing participants from within the department and beyond. It's the chapter's biggest annual show of what the students here can actually do.

Event names and formats as run by the I.I.Ch.E. JU Students' Chapter; specific dates, themes and formats vary year to year — check the chapter's current announcements for the latest edition of each.

Where They Are Now

Alumni leading industry,
research, and each other

A century of graduates has carried this department's name into laboratories, refineries and boardrooms worldwide. Every entry below is tied to a moment in the department's own timeline — the batch they belonged to, or the year they were recognised.

Mr. Ravi Prasad
Batch of 1971
Former CEO, Produits Artistiques Métaux Précieux (PAMP), Dubai
Retired from running one of the world's leading gold and silver refiners, then came back and funded a ₹31-lakh chemical reactor for the department's teaching lab — ahead of the Centenary, 2023.
Prof. Arup K. SenGupta
Batch of 1973
P.C. Rossin Professor Emeritus, Lehigh University, USA
Left Jadavpur with a chemical engineering degree and spent a career on one hard problem: arsenic in drinking water. His polymer-based filter now protects millions of people, work recognised with the National Academy of Engineering's Grainger Prize. As of 2026 he remains an active researcher at Lehigh, recently extending his arsenic-removal sorbent work into direct air capture of CO2.
Dr. Rajiv Singh
Centenary Honouree, 2023
VP, Entegris & Professor Emeritus, University of Florida, USA
Carried the department's materials thread into American industry and academia, more or less at the same time.
Mr. Dipankar Das
Centenary Honouree, 2023
Group VP – Technology, Marathon Petroleum, USA
Set technology direction for one of the largest fuel refiners and marketers in the United States.
Dr. Asit Das
Centenary Honouree, 2023
Head of Refinery R&D and Process Development, Reliance Industries Ltd.
Runs refinery-scale research at India's largest private-sector company — work that started, like everyone else's here, on the same lab benches.
Ms. Sukla Chandra
Centenary Honouree, 2023
Senior MD, Licensing & GE Corporate
Held a senior licensing leadership role inside GE's corporate structure.
Prof. Amalesh Sirkar
Centenary Honouree, 2023
President, Global Jadavpur University Alumni Foundation
Spends much of his time making sure Jadavpurians — from every department, not just this one — never quite lose touch with each other, or the university.
Mr. Dwipen Ghosh
Centenary, 2023
Director, Global Jadavpur University Alumni Foundation
Spent over two months in Kolkata coordinating the repair of the department's own century-old building, so it would be ready in time for its Centenary.
Prof. Chiranjib Bhattacharjee
Alumnus
Vice-Chancellor, Jadavpur University
Went from student here to leading the whole university — and still credits the department's alumni for keeping it connected to industry.

Roles and titles as recognised around the department's Centenary Celebration Programme (Feb 2023) and Global Jadavpur University Alumni Foundation materials, updated where 2026 information could be independently verified (SenGupta, Bhattacharjee); other entries may have changed since and are marked accordingly.

1921Founded
IndiaOldest Dept.
I.I.Ch.E.Est. 1947
JUKolkata

The Department Today

Still the department
that started it all

This is India's oldest chemical engineering department, and one of the oldest anywhere in the world. It currently offers a 4-year Bachelor of Engineering (intake 82), a 2-year Master of Engineering (intake 38), and, since 2011, a 2-year Master of Bioprocessing Engineering (intake 10), alongside PhD research. Active research spans Advanced Process Engineering, Bioprocess and Bioenergy, Membrane-Based Processes, Fuel Cells, Nanomaterials, Catalysis and Reaction Engineering, Environmental Pollution and Waste Valorization, among other areas, backed by UGC-SAP, DST-PURSE, MHRD and TEQIP funding.

Its labs today include the Momentum Transfer & Mechanical Operation Laboratory, Process Control Lab, Reaction Engineering Lab, Energy Engineering Lab, Bioprocess Lab, and analytical facilities under UGC-SAP (DRS) and DST-FIST, alongside a dedicated workshop, computer labs, drawing rooms, seminar rooms and a departmental library.

The I.I.Ch.E. Jadavpur University Students' Chapter is the current generation's way of holding onto the department's purpose — keeping its traditions, alumni network and shared history alive for every batch that comes through, because a department this old can very easily forget its own story if nobody keeps telling it.

The Students' Chapter

Carried forward by whoever's here now

The I.I.Ch.E. JU Students' Chapter does what every generation before it has done — keeps the department's community, its history and its ambitions moving. Practically, that means alumni events, flagship programmes like TURBULYX, ChemBRIDGE, INNOVA and Chemathlon, and departmental traditions. Quietly, it also means making sure a hundred years of story doesn't just fade out.

Est. 1921 Legacy
Alumni Network
Department Archive
Centenary & Beyond