Jacob Winograd is the father of Alma and Becca and former husband of Camila.
He died at Halloween years ago in an accident, together with his research assistant Farnaz, when Alma and Becca were children. After Alma's accident her appears to her in persistent visions, urging her to tap into a mysterious ability that allows her to travel through space and time with the hopes of preventing his untimely death.[1] He was a theoretical physicist researching time travel and is convinced he was killed because someone wanted his research.
After research came out that people with schizophrenia had large ventricles, he theorized that mystics, priestesses and shamans might have large ventricles as well, and that their abilities come form a specific brain structure. The few holy people he managed to get their brains scanned confirmed this. He then tried to replicate their abilities by using some of their ancient techniques on students who had larger ventricles[2]. When he found out that Alma had large ventricles as well, he began to experiment on her. At first claiming it was purely to help her unlocking her abilities, he later confesses he was trying to save his mother Geraldine, who had lost her way back to reality. Jacob hoped researching Alma's abilities might enable him to travel back in time and help Geraldine find her way back[3].
Jacob doesn't remember the last hours of his life and when Alma manages to go back she finds out Jacob has been wrong all the time. As it turned out, Camila broke into his lab that Halloween night, searching for Alma. Confronting Jacob with what he had done, she told him to never come home again. When Farnaz learned that Camila didn't know about their experiments, she told him they had gone too far and that she would report him. Jacob managed to momentarily talk her down, but was convinced he would lose everything now - not only his family but also his research and job. Driving Farnaz home, he drove into a ravine, making the accident a murder-suicide by his hands[4].
When he realizes what he has done, he tells Alma to forget about him, but she is convinced it isn't too late for him and that he deserves to live. He possesses his past self, not taking the call about the break-in at the lab, instead going trick or treating with young Alma. As season 1 leaves off with a cliffhanger, it is not confirmed if this worked and he actually got back[5].