From Berkeley Win moved to New Zealand where he would stay for four years at the University of Otago, leaving as Senior Lecturer in 1964. Here his studies became more focussed at the smaller scale, analysing multiple deformations in the famous Otago schists. The study of microstructures in thin sections became a powerful tool which he used and helped develop over his entire career.

Win did his first experimental work at the Research School of Earth Sciences of the Australian National University in Canberra, where he worked with Mervyn Paterson, studying the development of preferred orientation of platy minerals. He learned how much insight one can gain from measurements in laboratory experiments which are relevant to rock deformation in nature.

He then moved to Albany in 1965, before the present Earth Sciences building was even completed. This was a unique opportunity, in a department rapidly becoming a top research site, with many colleagues who would rise to fame: John Dewey, Jack Bird, Akiho Miyashiro, and William Kidd. Here Win set up a laboratory with a large high pressure deformation apparatus, to study folding and the development of foliations. He started using model materials, mixtures of salt and mica, and studied the developing microstructures in quantitative detail. He saw the frustrating side of these experiments: one is only able to see the material before and after the experiment, leaving many details of the evolution of the microstructure to guesswork. He finally developed a small shearing device to deform salt-mica mixtures between thick glass windows, and was able to watch the material deforming.

The coming of Paul Williams and Bruce Hobbs to Albany marked the start of a remarkable cooperation, integrating the best of continuum mechanics, experimental and microstructural skills and brilliant insight in geometry and kinematics. The period produced a series of important papers on the development of foliations based on imaginative experiments, and culminated in the publication in 1976 of the textbook An Outline of Structural Geology which became one of the most influential structural geology textbooks of the twentieth century.

During this period Win also saw his teaching skills blossoming. He became more and more interested in explaining complicated concepts to geologists in a simple, understandable way, so that the insights could be applied in practice. His book Stress and Strain was the first milestone of this path. His continuous interest in the quality of the teaching is shown by several articles and short courses in the following years to improve the presentation of essentially the same material, using innovative illustrations and exercises. His interest in teaching other geologists and students about structural geology in general, and about microstructure and continuum mechanics in particular is particularly well demonstrated by a long series of talks at the GSA meetings. There always was something to take home, a new, interesting idea, presented in innovative ways. One of the many unforgettable examples was a machine Win built from a trivet, some strings and a few weights and pulleys. He covered it with a red cloth and demonstrated how a suitable material can shorten fastest in the direction of the least principle stress. In the last slide of his presentation he removed the cover to show the machine behind, explaining the geological implications to the flabbergasted audience. His talks are beautiful examples of the art of communication: simple, using the minimum of graphics, explaining the point clearly, but never shallow, challenging the audience to think about the deeper implications.

As supervisor, reviewer and discussion partner many have learnt much from Win. His thoughtful comments and gentle challenging did much to direct our thinking, and his liberal use of the phrase not nec'ly (not necessarily) in the margins of works in progress did much to instil rigour in his students' thinking. His generosity with time and attention in what he calls the World Wide Classroom is exemplary.

In the early nineteen-eighties Win slowly lost interest in "big" experiments. He recognized that many of the processes we were trying to understand were so complex that the only chance to really understand them is via real-time observation at high resolution, where displacement and microstructure evolution are recorded simultaneously. So he started using the technique of see-through experiments, and laid the basis for what is now an active field of research, with about ten other labs in the world doing work of this kind. His innovative and provocative reports on this work had a real impact on how we think about the evolution of microstructures in rocks. The Earth Sciences building of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C. includes an exhibit on Win's analogue work, another tribute to the importance of his work.

Besides experiments, Win has made major contributions to the application of continuum mechanics to the problems of deformation in geological bodies. His papers on non-coaxial deformation and on the representation of tensor quantities using Mohr circles are thought-provoking and will remain necessary reading for a long time.

Win has been on the faculty of the State University of New York's Department of Geological (later Earth and Atmospheric) Sciences since 1965. In his 37-year career at Albany he served 20 years as a full professor. He served on NSF advisory committees and on boards of international geological associations, and was chair of the Department of Geological Sciences. Over his career Win was honoured several times. In 1997 he received the Award for Excellence in Research of SUNY which recognizes outstanding research and scholarship by members of the faculty over a sustained period of time. In 1996, at its Annual Meeting, the Geological Society of America presented to Win its Career Contribution Award for "achievements that have led to major advances in the fields of structural geology and tectonics". In 1999 he received the Bruce Hobbs Medal in recognition of his outstanding contributions to structural geology

Win has retired from SUNY in 1998, and lives in Upper New York State.