Avant-garde & experimental.

Margarita Geleta

[linkedin] [geleta (at) berkeley (dot) edu]

Ms. Geleta is a computer scientist and AI/HCI researcher based in San Francisco. With a multifaceted research background, spanning audio + spatial computing and AI/ML for population genetics, Ms. Geleta led research projects at the Berkeley AI Research laboratory and the Stanford Department of Biomedical Data Science. In 2026, she is joining Apple Inc.
Previously, Ms. Geleta worked in R&D at Microsoft Research audio & acoustics research group, interned as a sound tech researcher at Dolby Laboratories at the Advanced Technology Group, and as an applied scientist at Amazon's Home Innovation Team, specializing in large-scale generative models and GAN inversion. In 2025, she was appointed Lead TA in VR and Immersive Computing at UC Berkeley.

Currently, I'm pursuing my computer science PhD at UC Berkeley and working as Research Assistant at Stanford University on AI applied to population genetics under the guidance of Dr. Alexander G. Ioannidis and Dr. Nilah M. Ioannidis.

Ancestry & population genetics research [gscholar]



Genealogy has been my life-long passion, motivating me to pursue a PhD and reconnect with my extended family. My PhD thesis focuses on ancestry inference and investigative genetic genealogy, while my master’s thesis explored genotype simulation conditioned on pedigrees. Currently, I am interested in applying AI/ML techniques to enhance kinship prediction. If you think we are distant cousins, send me an e-mail.

Point cloud local ancestry inference (PCLAI). A new paradigm for ancestry inference. Presented at ASHG 2025 (Boston, MA). [Under review]

Autoencoders for genomic variation analysis. Autoencoders for genotype compression, simulation, and global ancestry inference. Published in Genome Research Journal 2026. [Full article]

Pedigree-aware genotype simulation. A forward-in-time genotype simulator with integrated genealogical structure & sex-specific recombination. [Not public]

A Tsallis-Entropy Lens on Genetic Variation. An information-theoretic generalization of the fixation statistic based on Tsallis q-entropy to quantify genetic differentiation. Published at ICASSP 2026. [Preprint]

Spatial computing, art, events [DM for collab]

Audio mixing in augmented reality on Apple Vision Pro. Demo recorded on stage at Temple Nightclub in San Francisco. [Contact for more]

PCB/GPU fashion statements. Designer purses using PC hardware components and jellyfish pigments. [Contact for more details]

Events & speaking engagements. Too social of a person, so much that I've co-organized dozens of tech workshops, hackathons, career fairs, and conferences. I am also available for speaking to tech audiences. [List]

I'm a 3rd generation audiophile. Everything started in the 80s. The tape markets, the Radio Engineering magazines, and the love for music. [Genealogy]