Ronald A. Sinton — Founder, President, and Senior Scientist

Ron founded Sinton Instruments in 1992. Previously, he had done his PhD work at Stanford University, developing 28%-efficient silicon concentrator cells and 23% efficient backside-contact one-sun cells, prior to becoming the Manager of R&D at SunPower Corporation in 1989.

At Sinton Instruments he has focused on bringing the systematic device physics approach that was used to develop very high-efficiency silicon solar cells to the design of test and measurement instruments and analysis techniques for the wider variety of silicon solar cell technologies in all stages of R&D and production today.

He continues to publish technical papers and participates in paper reviews for numerous journals as well as conference program organization, especially the IEEE PVSC (1987-2008) and the annual NREL Silicon Workshop (1994-present).

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Tanaya Mankad — Senior Development Engineer

Tanaya is currently responsible for product industrialization and industrial software development, as well as algorithm development for lifetime analysis.

Tanaya originally moved to Boulder and joined Sinton Instruments in 2001 as a C++ programmer and product development engineer. Before 2001, she worked at Lucent Technologies in a joint venture with ASML and Applied Materials to develop a next-generation electron-beam photolithography tool.

She earned her M.S. in Electrical Engineering from U.C. Santa Barbara in 1999, developing a PL microscope to quantify exciton behavior in InAs quantum dots. Her undergraduate degree in EE/Physics is from Princeton University.

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Keith Forsyth — Applications Engineer

At Sinton Instruments, Keith has been working extensively on I-V cell and module testing. By working closely with several concentrator cell and system manufacturers, Keith has developed an expertise in concentrator measurements. In addition, he has developed and optimized software that allows for the rapid acquisition of I-V curves over a range of intensities based on a minimum sample set of data.

Prior to joining Sinton Instruments, Keith worked as a research engineer at Phiar Corporation, a small device startup, building and testing 65-GHz detector diodes for high-speed communications applications. Keith earned his B.S. in Engineering Physics from the Colorado School of Mines in 2005.

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James Swirhun — Applications Engineer

James is responsible for studying the spectral characteristics of our complete offering of test instruments, in order to better refine the lifetime analysis models and measurement software. He also performs quality assurance on our outgoing instruments, and works on next-generation development for Sinton Instruments’ suite of lifetime measurement tools.

James has an M.E. degree in Applied and Engineering Physics from Cornell University.

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Cara Coad — Mechanical Engineer

Cara brings more than 20 years of experience in the fields of production equipment design, product design, and automation to her work as a mechanical engineer at Sinton Instruments.

She has worked in a wide range of industries, including the fiber optics/telecommunications, medical imaging and diagnostics, food packaging, high-speed printers, consumer products, and disk drive industries.

Cara received both a B.S. degree in mechanical engineering and an M.S. degree in mechanical engineering from U.C. Berkeley.

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Margaret Sparks

Margaret keeps the office running smoothly and makes sure that things stay on track. She takes care of quoting, shipping, accounting, and office management.

For almost 30 years, Margaret has used her accounting, language, and organizational skills at a number of companies in the banking, film, health, and solar industries.

She has a B.S. in Accounting and B.A. in Spanish from the University of Colorado.

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Mike Montgomery — Assembly Technician

Mike has 25 years of experience in assembly, testing, and failure analysis for electronic and electromechanical devices.