UC Merced Magazine | Volume XIX, Issue VII

concentrator, a highly efficient device that collects and concentrates light, and introducing “Winston Cones,” nonimaging light collectors that by their design maximize the amount of light that can be focused from large areas into smaller photodetectors or photomultipliers. Much of the solar-concentrating research that has followed has been based on that landmark 1966 paper. Because of the publication and his inventions, Winston is widely considered to be the father of nonimaging optics, a field concerned with the optimal transfer of light radiation between a source and a target. e 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. Nonimaging solar collectors — once thought to be impossible — don’t need to track the sun and can function well under cloudy or hazy skies. ey revolutionized solar energy use by providing the broadest possible acceptance angles. ey o er higher solar concentrations in smaller cells and generate higher temperatures with less thermal loss. ey improve the reliability and efficiency of the solar cells in concentrated photovoltaics and improve heat transfer in concentrated solar thermal. ey have even been used for water desalinization. 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. Winston Cones have been used to track cosmic rays, map the sky and measure the fundamental building blocks of the universe.

In 1988, using a new mirror-based technique, Winston and his team set a record for the 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. His family evacuated the Soviet Union in 1943 during World War II. 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. A er 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. In addition to solar energy, Winston also researched high-energy and particle physics and astrophysics. A er his retirement from the university in 2022, 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. 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 was predeceased by his wife, Patricia, and son Gregory.

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In Memoriam Distinguished Professor Emeritus Roland Winston, 1936-2025 Distinguished Professor Emeritus Roland Winston was a pioneer in solar energy, engineering and physics and a founding faculty member in the schools of Natural Sciences and Engineering. 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, held more than 50 patents and won multiple awards. As a junior faculty member in the University of Chicago Physics Department, he published a paper introducing a new field he called nonimaging optics, describing the compound parabolic solar

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