Engineering research scientist Gaurav Gopalan had three main loves in his life: helicopters, Shakespeare and his partner of five years, Bob Schaeffer.
“He was sweet, he was witty, he was charming, and very intelligent, passionate about Shakespeare and passionate about life,” Schaeffer said.
In the early morning of Sept. 10, a passer-by found Gopalan, 35, dead on a sidewalk just a few blocks from his home in the Columbia Heights neighborhood of Washington. He was wearing women’s clothing and makeup, The Washington Blade reported. While police first reported there were no visible signs of injury, the D.C. Medical Examiner’s office ruled Gopalan’s death a homicide from blunt force trauma to the head Tuesday, according to the Blade.
Gopalan was born in India on December 6, 1975, and moved across the globe to Washington in 1998. Shortly after his arrival, Gopalan came to this university’s Alfred Gessow Rotorcraft Center as a graduate research assistant. Led by engineering professor Fred Schmitz, he extensively researched aeroacoustics — the study of how to redesign helicopter blades to quiet the rotors’ loud noise.
“He’s vibrant and enthusiastic and when he’s on a topic, man, he goes off like a rocket,” said Ben Sim, an aeromechanics researcher for the U.S. Army. “We just sort of sucked him into the helicopter world and he did a great job.”
Gopalan continued to work with Schmitz at the rotorcraft center as an assistant research scientist until his death. And over the course of the past year, Gopalan had worked tirelessly to launch his own aerospace engineering research business. He called it the Fred Schmitz Group, a testament to his esteem for his longtime mentor.
Schmitz said the feeling was mutual.
“He was a key player,” Schmitz said. “We’re going to miss him a lot.”
But when he wasn’t studying helicopter rotors, Gopalan was bringing Shakespeare to life on stage, serving as director, dramaturge and production manager for several productions for the WSC Avant Bard and the Constellation Theatre, according to Christopher Henley, an artistic director for the WSC Avant Bard.
“His devotion to Shakespeare was so great that he offered to do anything to work on his plays with us,” Henley said, recalling when he first named Gopalan assistant director for the WSC’s production of Richard II in 2006, which was such a success that Gopalan served as the company’s resident assistant director for a year. “His love for theatre was very, very strong.”
Henley said Gopalan’s contributions to the stage and the impact he had on the people there were powerful.
“He was incredibly enthusiastic, incredibly gentle and generous and full of life and fun to be with and fun to spend time with,” Henley said. “Everyone in theatre is in shock. Nobody can believe it.”
But Gopalan’s other great love was his partner, Bob Schaeffer, with whom he had been living in Columbia Heights with their two dogs and two cats, whom Gopalan referred to as the couple’s “kids.”
Schaeffer described the five years he had been with Gopalan as, “unlike anything I have ever known.”
“He just loved to make me happy,” Schaeffer said. “He would go the grocery store, and when he’d come home, he’d be so excited to make a meal for me.”
And Gopalan’s passion for his work was clear even at home.
“He woke up to get on his projects, and day and night he would work without hardly any eating or sleeping,” Schaeffer said.
Friends said this enthusiasm was apparent in every aspect of his life.
“He did everything passionately and completely,” Henley said. “How he can be so versed in the arts and so obviously clever in terms of scientific things. … It’s mind-boggling.”
Schmitz said there will be a memorial service for Gopalan at the Memorial Chapel on Oct. 2. He is survived by his parents and a brother in Nepal, who could not be reached for comment.
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