P. C. S. Devara is a Fellow of RMetS, IETE, MASc and APASc. He has been making original research contributions in the field of Optical and Radio Remote Sounding of the Atmosphere for more than three decades. He received several awards/honors in recognition to his fundamental research investigations. He also has been immensely contributing to Capacity Building through teaching and guiding research students. He published more than 390 research papers. So far, he has guided 10 Ph.D., 13 M. Tech. and 9 M. Sc. students. He has developed, for the first time in East Asia, the Meteor Wind Radar technique for studying upper atmospheric winds. He also developed Laser Scintillometer for simultaneous determination of atmospheric turbulence and cross-winds, and Excimer laser-Raman shifter based Differential Absorption Lidar (DIAL) for vertical profiling of atmospheric ozone. He is responsible for the development of autonomous the Dual Polarization Micro Pulse Lidar (DPMPL) technique, Doppler Wind Lidar and Raman Lidar for vertical profiling of aerosols, clouds, winds, water vapor and temperature with ultra-high spatial and temporal resolution. He is the first to use these techniques to obtain information which has wide range of applications in earth sciences.