Before becoming an academic, he served as an electrical officer with the Royal Canadian Navy on HMCS Nootka from 1952 to 1958.

Winter is notable for introducing many important methods and concepts to the study of human locomotion and balance, such as automated television motion capture,[2] lowpass digital filtering of marker trajectories,[3] measurement of instantaneous segmental energy,[4] and the powers produced by joint moments of force,[5] and the analysis of electromyograms by ensemble averaging.

[6] Winter started his academic career in 1961 as an assistant professor in electrical engineering at the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario.

He then took up a similar position at the Technical University of Nova Scotia, where he was eventually promoted to professor in 1969.

After graduating from Westdale Secondary School and completing his BSc at RMC, he joined the Navy and moved to Halifax.