Professor Satyendra Nath Bose, known as S. N. Bose (1894- 1974), was a faculty at the University of Dhaka during 1921- 1945. He was the pioneer in the field of Crystallography in this part of the world. He and his coworkers worked on theories of Crystallography in 1920s and S. N. Bose even designed his own camera to collect X-ray diffraction data. In 1945, S.N. Bose left Dhaka University and joined Kolkata University but his coworker at Dhaka University continued solving structures of compounds using X-ray data. Later, Professor Mokarram Hussain Khundker (1922 – 1972) of the Department of Chemistry, University of Dhaka, and his group used often X-ray crystallography as one of the analytical tools to characterise new materials they prepared in their diverse research projects.
Almost the same time, another group at the Department of Physics, University of Dhaka, led by Professor Abdul Matin Chowdhury (1921 – 1981), who was one of the coworkers of Nobel Laureate Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin (1910 – 1994). Professor Chowdhury with his group at Dhaka University solved structures of many compounds from X-ray data. Only University of Dhaka in Bangladesh had a few groups who used X-ray and electron diffraction techniques as analytical tools till 1960s , but now many groups in universities and research organizations of Bangladesh are actively working in different fields of Crystallography. Though scientists of Bangladesh were active in the fields of crystallography since 1920s but there was no report of a formal society of Bangladeshi Crystallographers. This may be due to the fact that scientists (chemists, physicists, biologists, mineralogists) have their own learned societies in Bangladesh and did not take initiative to form a Crystallographic Society.
Asian Crystallographic Association (AsCA), in its Council Meeting in 2011 decided to hold its Conference of 2013 at Dhaka, Bangladesh and that was the driving force of Bangladeshi scientists working in different fields of crystallography to launch a society and Bangladesh Crystallographic Association (BCA) which was the formed in December 2011. Another driving force to form BCA is that the UN adopted a resolution (Number 66/284) in its General Assembly to observe 2014 as the International Year of Crystallography (IYCr 2014). Like other countries of the World, Bangladesh also organized events to promote crystallography throughout the year 2014.
Bangladesh is one of the member countries of AsCA and its scientists have been participating in all conferences and other events of AsCA and also in regional and international crystallographic related events. In the 24th General Assembly and Congress of the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr), held in Hyderabad, India, on 21-28 August 2017, BCA became an adhering body of IUCr. BCA is now organizing regularly its conferences and other activities to promote crystallography in Bangladesh.
Bangladesh Crystallographic Association 