Dr. Herman Winick

This is the Photograph of Dr. Herman Winick. He was a friend of HH Priya Nathji and helped his greatly during his stay in U.S. He provided him initial stay at his house till hostel facilities were made available for HH Priya Nathji at the Harvard University.  When Shri Nathji was in America he used to invite Him to his house. He entire family loved Shri Nathji. He was greatly concerned about Shri Nathji’s health and took Him for boat rides at the Swan Lake in Boston Garden. Dr. Herman Association with Shri Nathji is mentioned in Mahagranth – God Incarnate on pages 1076-1078 were one can read about him in detail.

Dr. Herman Winick earned his doctorate in high-energy physics from Columbia University in 1957, and has held positions at University of Rochester and Harvard University. He was one of the primary actors in the creation of SSRL and the Linac Coherent Light Source, and has played a key role in the construction of SESAME in Jordan. He has authored more 100 scientific articles and is a fellow of the APS and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is most remembered as Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource physicist Herman Winick.
Now Dr. Herman Winick will be honored on October 2, 2012, his 80th Birthday,  at Quadrus Conference Center Menlo Park, CA 2nd.  A one-day symposium will be conducted, which will honor Herman Winick's championing of synchrotron radiation since he came to Stanford in the 1970s to lead the technical design of what was then known as the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Project. It will take place the day before the SSRL/LCLS Users' Meeting and will include speakers discussing Herman's contributions including development of insertion devices and free electron lasers as well as his activities in human rights and the development of synchrotron sources around the world. The program will include the following speakers: Ewan Paterson, Seb Doniach, Claudio Pellegrini, Jo Stohr, Andy Sessler, Efim Gluskin, Soichi Wakatsuki, John Schmerge and Artie Bienenstock. 

Two years back, Dr. Herman had been awarded the Andrei Sakharov Prize, an honor given every two years by the American Physical Society in recognition of scientists who have worked to uphold human rights. Winick, who is assistant director emeritus at SSRL and professor emeritus in the applied physics department at Stanford University, received the prize February 14,  2010, at the American Physical Society’s general meeting in Washington, D.C. He shared the award with City College of New York physicist Joseph Birman and National Science Foundation Elementary Particle Physics Program Director Moishe Pripstein.

The award is named for Andrei Sakharov, a Russian physicist and Nobel laureate who campaigned extensively against nuclear proliferation in the former Soviet Union. The prize was first given in 2006 to Cornell University physicist and Soviet exile Yuri Orlov, who, in the 1970s and 80s, was imprisoned and subsequently deported for criticizing human rights violations by the Soviet government.

HH Priya Nathji has mentioned how humble and pure hearted Dr. Herman Winick was and this can be understood when we see what he said when he was told that he has been chosen for this award:

"It is humbling to get a prize for which the previous winners were such incredible people, who took such serious risks and endured such serious punishments," Dr. Herman Winick said. "Here I am in a free country, speaking my mind and trying to help these people with no thought of repercussions against me."

Winick said he suspects he was nominated for work he did to pressure the Iranian government to release Iranian physicist Mohammad Hadi Hadizadeh Yazdi, who had been one of his colleagues with the Jordan-based Synchrotron Light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East collaboration. In 2001, Winick organized a letter writing campaign on Hadizadeh’s behalf, recruiting 32 Nobel Prize laureates in the effort. Winick later helped secure research positions for Hadizadeh at American institutions, including Ohio University and Harvard University.

"I just got very upset that a guy like him, who I respected so much, should be in prison for views so similar to mine," Winick said.
A recent symposium honoring Herman Winick’s illustrious career in synchrotron development boasted a stellar guest list.
It included friends and colleagues from across SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, where Winick has spent the lion’s share of his 50-some-year career, and from across the world, because when Winick wasn’t building experimental facilities at SLAC, he was busy convincing other scientists in other countries of the worth of synchrotrons—both as tools for discovery and as teaching tools that could help strengthen a local academic community.

But Winick learned decades ago that an academic community is only as strong as the freedom of its scholars. So in addition to advocating for synchrotrons, he advocates for his colleagues, both in science and beyond. A special guest at the symposium was Natalia Koulinka, a Belarusian journalist who faced danger in her home country due to her work. Hearing of Koulinka’s plight through colleagues, Winick, working with the Scholars at Risk Network hosted by New York University, was instrumental in bringing her to safety in the United States. Scholars at Risk is an international network of higher education institutions that promotes academic freedom and protects threatened scholars. Its work includes helping arrange temporary academic positions in safe locations.

“Through this program hundreds of careers, and undoubtedly some lives, have been saved,” Winick says. “These are extraordinary people who have taken great risks to promote freedom and democracy in their home countries. Working with SAR enables universities such as Stanford to give them a safe place to continue their important work, while at the same time contributing to teaching and research at the host university.”