K Gopinath was born in Mangalore. He got BE from KREC Surathkal (1968); M.Tech. (1970) and PhD (1978) from IIT Madras. After working for one year in the industry, he came back to pursue Ph.D. at IIT Madras in 1971 and absorbed as the faculty of Mechanical Engineering. He was teaching at IIT Madras from 1971 to 2011. He has served as Head, Machine Design Section and Material Science Research Centre. Post retirement as senior professor, he has settled in Bangalore. Post retirement he has settled in Bangalore.
His hobbies include book writing; drawing; Hindustani classical music-tabla and harmonium; carpentry; cooking and gardening. He has 10 monographs, 4 books, 3 eBooks to his credit. His video lecture on Machine Design is telecasted from New Delhi Dooradarshan for engineering students. He has won several prizes in pencil sketching during Intercollegiate and City artist’s competitions from 1968 to 1972 in Chennai. He has won alumni Excellence award from NITK at the 3rd Global Meet 2004, Wear Journal top 20 best papers in 2004, Shah Memorial national award from IETE New Delhi for import substitution for developing HiPOS (High pressure oxidation system); Two national awards for outstanding contributions to Design and Research in Mechanical Engineering. He was in the editorial Board of several International and National Journals. He has published 6 books so far from 2023 onwards.
He belongs to farming community. His paternal and maternal grand-parents were farmers. He was trained by his maternal grandfather Kumble Lakshman Nayak in Farming and carpentry right from young age. Under his care, he was maintaining a fruit orchard in Mangalore which contained about 15 varieties of Mangoes. Lakshman Nayak used to take him to his Farm at Kumble and Kasargod during vacations and holidays for training. 67 years of rich experience in farming and orchard growing has helped him in bring out the book – “A Treatise on Mango the King of Fruits” in 4 volumes.