Profile Mar Athanasios College for Advanced Studies Tiruvalla (MACFAST) is a premier post graduate research institute, established in 2001 with the objective of moulding eminent professionals over the years to confront the challenging demands of the corporate world and the world of science & technology. MACFAST is affiliated to the Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam and approved by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), New Delhi. MACFAST is owned and managed by the Corporate Educational Agency of the Catholic Archdiocese of Tiruvalla, founded by, His Grace Dr. Geevarghese Mar Timotheos, (Former Metropolitan Arch Bishop of the Malankara Catholic Archdiocese of Tiruvalla). The present Metropolitan Arch Bishop of the Malankara Catholic Archdiocese of Tiruvalla, His Grace Dr. Thomas Mar Koorilos is the patron of the college. As visualized by its founders, the college has grown steadily over the years with eight postgraduate courses in Management, Computer science and Biosciences and positioned its identity as a multidisciplinary institution in the higher education segment of the state. Within a very short span of its existence, MACFAST has emerged as a trendsetter in education and has turned in to a benchmark for others to emulate with its unparalleled hallmark of academic brilliance and social commitment. The college is located in Tiruvalla, an active commercial township in the Central Travancore region of Kerala. The two adjacent campuses together bring an idyllic character in shape and the atmosphere around pitches an ambience of solitude, of course, inevitable for intellectual pursuance. Amidst the lush green, stands this multi-storeyed building with a built-up area of 3,00,000 sq. ft. The acronym of Mar Athanasios College For Advanced Studies Tiruvalla – MACFAST is also interpreted as: “ Moulding Attitude with Commitment for Futuristic Action towards Sustainable Transformation”. The best faculties combined with the state of the art infrastructure enable the optimal progression of students through scientific temper and dedication towards excellence. To meet the challenging demands of the Corporate and Scientific world, research pursuits and technology initiatives are given utmost significance in MACFAST. This has led to the establishment of the MACFAST Centre for Research and Development (MCRD). The MCRD offers PhD programmes in the Biosciences and is poised to enhance student creativity and produce high quality research. A research journal titled Journal of Science, Technology and Management (JSTM), has also been initiated in 2008. JSTM is dedicated to bring together research in these three fields from around the world and also publish original work from the MCRD MACFAST owns an on-campus Community Radio Station. Radio MACFAST 90.4 is the first on-campus Community radio in the Kerala and 46th in India. MACFAST College has reached yet another acme by decorating a position of First solar powered campus in India. It envisages to utilizing alternate sources of energy for a sustainable future. This solar project has a capacity of 130KW. This continuous zeal for academic excellence as well as social commitment has led to the accreditation of MACFAST with CGPA of 3.08 on a 4-point scale at ‘A’ Grade by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) in 2016. MACFAST also poses significant achievement by the way of recognition for research, publications and projects in the year 2018 by Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) Govt. of India. MACFAST also promotes Academic and cultural interchange in the areas of exchange, teaching, research, transfer and other activities with Government, Semi Government, National and International Institutions. The college has signed active MoUs with CSIR –CFTRI Govt. of India, ICAR-CIFT Govt. of India, IIIT Allahabad, Sami Labs Ltd. Mysore, AMITY group of institutions, including their international campuses at U.S, Singapore and Dubai. The college also ensure creditable academic performance, in the form of 100 percentage results, first 8 ranks out of 10 ranks of MG University examinations during 2018 for MBA. In 2019, students of MCA also bagged 8 ranks out of first 10 ranks of MG University examinations. The students of this college have bagged more than 100 university ranks since 2001. MACFAST is an ISO 9001:2015 Certified institution and the college was listed in the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) Rankings 2020 Rank band: 151-200. The college got the fame of the only Private self-financing college from Kerala to be listed among the top 200 rank band in a national level ranking. MACFAST continues its journey as “The Trendsetter in Education” by introducing three new MSc Programmes in Bionanotechnology, Artificial Intelligence and Datascience, and it is expected to be operational from the next academic year 2020 -21. We have also set our foot in Media Studies by adding a new Master Degree programme in Multimedia.