Robert Gonsalves (E '56) is a teacher through and through. Just minutes into his interview with the Daily, he sits at the whiteboard with a marker in hand and begins to explain the problem NASA encountered with the Hubble Space Telescope more than a decade ago.
Gonsalves' passion for engineering is unmistakably clear as he eagerly speaks of his work with NASA and the development of new technology to aid the search for planets in other solar systems.
Gonsalves' career at Tufts began when he was an undergraduate studying for a his degree in electrical engineering. Currently a professor and former Chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Gonsalves' accomplishments are evident both within and beyond the Tufts community.
In the summer of 1990, when NASA discovered a defect in the lens of the Hubble Space Telescope, Gonsalves used his own patented method of "phase retrieval" to correct it. After heading a team consisting of members from Tufts and Harvard for six months, he found a prescription that would fix the problem and help clear up the image from the telescope. Three years later, Gonsalves' prescription proved to be a perfect fit and he has worked closely with NASA ever since.
Prior to his involvement with NASA, Gonsalves was a teacher. The Woburn, Mass. native discovered his passion for teaching while giving a talk on the transistor while he was an undergraduate at Tufts in the 1950s. He recalled that he "liked being out there in front of a large audience." After serving with the United States Navy for three years, he began his teaching career as an instructor at the Officer Candidate School in Newport, R.I.
Armed with his experience with NASA and with both a masters and doctorate degree in electrical engineering from Northeastern University, Gonsalves applied his knowledge in a variety of projects. Using his visual imaging expertise, he examined footage captured by amateur spectators for a 1993 "Frontline" about John F. Kennedy's assassination. He applied the same expertise to analyze purported home video footage of the Loch Ness monster in 1999 for a PBS NOVA show.
Surprisingly enough, Gonsalves did not enter Tufts as a freshman with any particular interest in engineering. The reason why he choose to enter the field of electrical engineering was quite simple: "I was good at math, so engineering seemed like the right thing to do,"
Although he claims to have spent more time playing basketball than studying while at Tufts, Gonsalves soon found that engineering came to him naturally. He said that he especially enjoyed the math-based aspects of the field.
Gonsalves began teaching at Tufts in 1985. Since then, he founded and served as president of Lexitek, Inc., a company that constructs instruments used in cutting-edge optics research. He has also served as Director of the Electro-Optics Technology Center at Tufts.
Througout his career, Gonsalves has been supportive of students inside and outside of the classroom, serving as an advisor as well as a professor. In 2000, he received the Leibner Award for Excellence in Education and Advising.
Gonsalves has noticed changes in Electrical and Computer Engineering through his years of involvement in the field, especially at Tufts. One major change he noted was "a diminishing of the importance on the physical elements of electronics and a shift towards the intellectual." He attributes this trend to the increasing importance of software in engineering and, consequently, the dramatic growth of computer science at Tufts.
Gonsalves is now in his 45th and final year of teaching professionally. However, he does not plan on becoming any less involved with the world of science and engineering upon his retirement.
Gonsalves will continue his work with NASA on the search for planets in other solar systems. He currently sits on an oversight panel for the development of NASA's next space telescope, which will employ his "phase retrieval" technique and is due for completion in 2010.
Aside from his scientific work, Gonsalves also hopes to spend more time with his family, including his four grandchildren, and to travel.
