Solar energy researcher Winston recognized

Roland Winston, Professor in Physics, received the First Solar Personality of the Year Award Oct. 30 in Banglore, India, for his outstanding contributions to research, development, education and leadership in solar energy during the past 36 years.

A jury of leading representatives from the International Solar Energy Society and the Solar Energy Society of India nominated Winston for the award, which is sponsored by the Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India. “Professor Winston’s holistic mission continues to bring path-breaking and catalytic benefits to the development of technologies and applications in the field of solar energy the world over,” the jurors wrote in their citation. “He is the most appropriate awardee of the First ICICI Solar Personality of the Year Award for the year 1999.”

The jury cited Winston for his leadership in research that spans solar-energy collection, non-imaging optics and experimental, high-energy physics. Winston has led research groups in solar energy at Argonne National Laboratory and at the University. He holds 30 patents on non-imaging, radiant energy concentration and illumination. He also is the author of more than 150 publications and co-author of two definitive books on non-imaging optics.

Non-imaging optics serve as light funnels that collect and intensify radiation far better than lenses and mirrors. They also collect light from much of the sky, so they require no moving parts, unlike conventional solar arrays.

Non-imaging optics are the foundation for a new solar-energy technology that Winston and Chicago colleague Joseph O’Gallagher, Senior Lecturer in Physics, have developed over the last 25 years. The technology, which has been used to produce the highest intensity of sunlight anywhere in the solar system, including the surface of the sun, is now being developed commercially by Duke Solar of Sanford, N.C.

Winston served on the board of directors of the American Solar Energy Society from 1987 to 1992 and the International Solar Energy Society from 1991 to 1994.