Timothy Aloysius Gonsalves (born 20 June 1954) is a computer scientist and professor.
Gonsalves was born into a half British half Goan Catholic family on 20 June 1954, in Ooty, Nilgiris in Tamil Nadu. He graduated from Breeks Memorial School, Ooty in 1969. He completed B.Tech. (Electronics), IIT Madras, 1976. He went to the US for graduate studies, receiving an M.S. (Electrical Engineering) from Rice University, Houston in 1979 and Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1986. He joined the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Madras as Assistant Professor in January 1989.
Gonsalves is married to Priscilla Tapley Gonsalves and has two daughters, Danica Gonsalves, and Kartiki Gonsalves. The documentary The Elephant Whisperers directed by Kartiki Gonsalves and the story written by Priscilla Gonsalves has won under Documentary – Short Film category for Oscar 2023.
In the early 1990s, Gonsalves with two colleagues Ashok Jhunjhunwala and Bhaskar Ramamurthi decided to focus their research on technology for mass use in India. They founded the TeNeT Group with its motto “World-class technology at an affordable price”.
From about 2006 onwards, he worked on financial systems as a consultant to SBI and SEBI.
During the decade following 2010, he started to apply machine learning and data science to diverse fields such as computer networks and agriculture. He developed an interest in data-driven speculations on the future
Prof. Gonsalves took charge as the first full-time Director of IIT Mandi in January 2010. Under his leadership, IIT Mandi has grown from an Institute with only 97 students in 2009 to one with 1655 students (2019–20) and has graduated over 1500 alumni. In 2019, IIT Mandi became the first IIT to introduce a B. Tech. program in Data Science. In 2017 he chaired the Joint Admissions Board (JAB) sub-committee for increasing female enrollment in B.Tech. in IITs. The committee recommended an increase in female enrollment in IITs from 8% in 2016 to 14% in 2018-19, 17% in 2019-20, and 20% in 2020-21 by creating supernumerary seats.
After his retirement as Director, of IIT Mandi in June 2020, Prof. Gonsalves has been active in improving education in engineering colleges in India. He founded the LEAP (Learning Engineering by Activity with Products) program in 2021. He is a founding member of the Steering Committee of the CSEDU program aimed at improving the effectiveness of teaching computer science subjects in colleges. He leads the team in the Effective Teaching of Computer Networks.
