From 1919-1926, the Department of Chemistry was under the umbrella of Natural Sciences with the Department of Physics in Madras Christian College and became an independent department in 1927, under the headship of Prof. Edward Barnes, fondly known as an architect of the college campus. The Department has continued to place its imprint in scholarship – both nationally and internationally, under the dynamic leadership of successive heads, namely Dr S.V. Anantakrishnan (Student of Prof. C. K. Ingold), Dr I. M. Mathai, Dr R. Gopalan, Dr V. J. Philip, Dr R. Wilfred Sugumar, Dr R. Joel Karunakaran, and Dr P. Wilson. During the tenure of Dr S.V. Anantakrishnan, the Department obtained permission from the University of Madras to offer an M.Sc. by research and a PhD programme. Later in the year 1958, the Department started offering a regular M.Sc. programme. In 2005, it was recognized as a DST-FIST-sponsored Department, obtaining grants to develop infrastructure for teaching and research. In the year 2016, under the leadership of Dr P. Wilson (presently, Principal & Secretary, MCC), the department witnessed a significant refurbishment of academic laboratories (UG and PG) and a seminar hall (a popular venue for PhD viva voce examination) with state-of-art facilities, through the gift of benevolence by Mrs Indra Krishnamurthy Nooyi – former CEO of PepsiCo and an alumna of the Department. In the last ten years, the Department has received Major and Minor research project grants of around one crore from various funding agencies such as DST-SERB, UGC, UBCHEA, TNSCST etc. Furthermore, the department has published over 150 research articles in Scopus-indexed journals over the past five years. In 2021, the audio-visual room was refurbished with air-conditioning and state-of-art facilities such as a smartboard, gifted by Dr C. J. Alexander, an alumnus of the department. On the academic front, the UG, PG and M.Phil. syllabi have been revised, new courses have been introduced, and innovative pedagogies adopted.
