Adarsh Kumar Kamra earned his BSc and MSc degrees from Agra University, after which he joined the University of Roorkee where he worked on atmospheric electricity in the Physics Department under the supervision of NC Varshneya. He obtained his PhD degree (1968) and then left for post-doctoral research with B Vonnegut at Atmospheric Science Research Centre of the State University of New York at Albany. On returning to India he joined the University of Roorkee as a Pool Officer, moving to the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune in 1974 as a Senior Scientific Officer. He retired as Scientist 'G' in 2006 and is presently Emeritus Scientist at IITM.

Academic and Research Achievements: Dr Kamra worked in the fields of atmospheric electricity, thunderstorm electrification, dust storm electrification and aerosol physics. He has important findings on the effect of cloud electrification on the charge generation mechanisms and microphysics and dynamics of clouds, role of different charge centres in initiating and triggering lightning discharges in thunderstorms, electrical atomization of water drops, dust storm electrification, marine and Antarctic aerosols, generation and dissipation of atmospheric aerosols, ion nucleation and ion-aerosol interactions. He developed several instruments and build a unique atmospheric electricity observatory at Pune. He has published over 110 research articles in reputed national and international journals during his long career spanning over 4 decades. He mentored a large number of students including 6 PhD students.

Other Contributions: Kamra and his research team participated in a large number of national and international scientific experiments, including about a dozen cruises in the oceans around India as well as the two Antarctica expeditions. During these field experiments, the emphasis was to study various aspects of the Global Electric Circuit and marine and Antarctic atmospheric aerosols.

Awards and Honours: Dr Kamra was awarded the Young Scientist Research Award by the world Meteorological Organization (1976) and Silver Jubilee Award of IITM (1989, 1992 and 2004). He was elected Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore (1998) and the Indian Meteorological Society (2001).