Distinguished Professor Emeritus Roland Winston, a pioneer in solar energy, engineering and physics, died Feb. 8 at the age of 88 at his home in Merced.
A founding faculty member in the schools of Natural Sciences and Engineering at UC Merced, Winston also founded and directed the intercampus collaborative Advanced Solar Technologies Institute, known as UC Solar.
His research and teaching focused on concentrating solar energy systems. Winston published hundreds of articles in scientific journals, co-wrote several books and held more than 60 patents.
More than 50 years ago, as a junior faculty member in the University of Chicago Physics Department, he published a paper introducing a new field he called non-imaging optics, describing the compound parabolic solar concentrator (CPC), a highly efficient device that collects and concentrates light, and introducing “Winston Cones,” non-imaging light collectors that by their design maximize the amount of light that can be focused from large areas into smaller photodetectors or photomultipliers.
All solar-concentrating research that has followed has been based on that landmark 1966 paper.
“Professor Winston was a distinguished scholar and a widely respected researcher whose work elevated the national and international profile of UC Merced. His research has not only advanced our understanding of solar energy but also positioned our university as a leader in this critical area of study,” Chancellor Juan Sánchez Muñoz said. “As we mourn his loss, we also celebrate his extraordinary legacy, which will continue to guide and inspire future generations.”
Because of the publication and his inventions, Winston is widely considered to be the father of non-imaging optics, a field concerned with the optimal transfer of light radiation between a source and a target.
Non-imaging solar collectors — once thought to be impossible — don't need to track the sun and can function well under cloudy or hazy skies. They revolutionized solar energy use by providing the widest possible acceptance angles. They offer higher solar concentrations in smaller cells and generate higher temperatures with less thermal loss. They improve the reliability and efficiency of the solar cells in concentrated photovoltaics and improve heat transfer in concentrated solar thermal.
International experts continue to highlight the importance of Winston’s breakthrough. Professor Aldo Steinfeld of ETH Zurich University cited Winston’s work when his campus’s president asked him to present an example of basic research that led to a highly practical application comparable to Albert Einstein’s photoelectric effect that led to the development of photovoltaics.
The concepts developed and the devices Winston invented formed the core of solar technology, which carries the promise of making solar energy a viable energy source for society. Winston's work also formed the foundation of many extensive experiments to advance the field, including one that won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2015.
His inventions were recognized with a variety of awards and honors. He was a Guggenheim Fellow, won the Joseph Fraunhofer Award for “significant accomplishments in optical engineering” from the Optical Society of America and was elected as a U.S. delegate to the International Solar Energy Society.
In 1988, using a new mirror-based technique, Winston and his team set a record for concentration of solar energy, concentrating sunlight to more than 60,000 times its normal intensity.
Winston was born Feb. 12, 1936, in Moscow, USSR, the son of an American engineer who was helping the Soviets design towns and build an industrial base. The family evacuated the Soviet Union in 1943 during World War II, as the German military got within artillery range.
He attended the Bronx High School of Science in New York City for two years, earning early entrance to Shimer College in Illinois before transferring to the University of Chicago, where he earned a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree and a Ph.D.
After a short stint as an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Winston returned to the University of Chicago and was appointed chair of the Department of Physics. He conducted research at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) in Geneva, Switzerland, and at Argonne National Lab and the Enrico Fermi Institute, both in the Chicago area. He was also a visiting professor at the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, Israel.
He joined UC Merced in 2003 as one of the original eight founding faculty members, and like all of the faculty at the new campus, held dozens of committee positions, helped write curriculum, build schools, recruit administrators and other faculty members and recruit graduate students, in addition to building his research institute.
Besides solar energy, Winston also researched high-energy and particle physics and astrophysics.
Over his nearly 20 years at UC Merced, he guided many undergraduate and graduate students, and when he retired in 2022 at the age of 86, his work didn't stop. He founded Winston Cone Optics, a company dedicated to his research in solar technologies and to making solar energy more efficient and less expensive so it could be available to more people. He hired several people he had worked with through UC Solar, including graduate students and his administrative assistant, Robyn Lukens.
She cited his kindness, pointing out that Winston and his wife, Pat, paid Lukens’ tuition so she could attain her associate’s degree in accounting at Merced College. As a single mother, Lukens said she was touched and truly grateful.
Professor Sarah Kurtz, whom Winston greatly esteemed, worked with him on several projects and said she had the opportunity to observe him as he worked with students.
“Roland always supported his team members with great enthusiasm, focusing on what they could do rather than on their shortcomings,” she said.
Professionally, she said, Winston made a profound contribution to the world.
Winston was a fellow with the American Physical Society, the American Optical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Solar Energy Society, the International Solar Energy Society and SPIE, the International Society for Optics and Photonics.
He won many awards throughout his career, including the Franklin Institute C. Raymond Kraus Gold Medal; the Farrington Daniels Award of the International Solar Energy Society; the University of Chicago’s Alumni Award for Professional Achievement; and UC Merced’s first Chancellor’s Award, which included the Professor Roland Winston Endowed Scholarship, available to an entering first-year student with a declared major in physics or engineering who demonstrates financial need and/or is a DREAM Act student.
Winston is survived by his sons John and Joe, half-brothers Eugene and Vanya Loroch, grandsons Milo and Beckett Winston, and step-grandchildren Zoe and Alex Leuba. He is predeceased by his wife, Patricia, and son Gregory. Services will be held privately by the family.
