Margrit Betke of Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, beloved daughter, sister, aunt, and mentor and pathbreaking computer scientist, died on August 13, 2025. She was 58. Margrit was born in Langenhagen, Germany, and grew up in the small town of St. Augustin, enjoying school, reading, sports, and playing outside. She earned an undergraduate degree in computer science at the RFW University of Bonn, and then came to America on a Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) scholarship, earning a master's degree and a doctorate in computer science and electrical engineering at MIT. After a postdoc at the University of Maryland and several years teaching at Boston College, she joined the Boston University Computer Science Department in 2000. She was promoted to Professor of Computer Science in 2011 and became a dual German-U.S. citizen in 2017.

At BU, Margrit's research on artificial intelligence, computer vision, and human-computer interaction found applications in an astonishing array of fields, including social, health, and natural sciences and the arts. She won a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Award in 2001 for developing "Video-based Interfaces for People with Severe Disabilities," and she co-invented the "Camera Mouse," an assistive technology used worldwide by children and adults with severe motion impairments. In 2005, she was delighted to be one of two academics featured in Mass High Tech Magazine's "top 10 women to watch in New England," hoping that the feature would encourage more women to pursue computer science. Named a Senior Member of both the ACM and the IEEE in 2012, she published more than 200 original research papers and supervised 18 Ph.D. students as well as dozens of master's students and undergraduates. Even in the final days of her battle with cancer, she continued to read proposals and mentor students.

Margrit was brilliant, determined, creative, loyal, and generous. She loved reading, gardening, and travel, remembering trips to the Holy Land and to Japan with particular fondness. She enjoyed classical music, played the flute and taught herself piano, and had a beautiful voice, taking great pleasure in singing with the MIT Concert Choir, the University Lutheran Church choir, and the Camberville Somerchoir. A woman of deep faith, she was a longtime member of University Lutheran Church in Cambridge, Mass., serving as Church Council president in 2012.

Margrit is survived by her parents, Wilfried and Ludmilla Betke; her sister, Elisabeth Mursch and husband Andree; her brother, Ulrich Betke and partner Katja Sauerborn; her nieces and nephews, Caroline Hasenberg, Erik Hasenberg, Richard Betke, and Johanna Betke; her husband, Jonathan Macgowan; her rescue dog, Shilah; and many relatives, colleagues, students, neighbors, and friends.

A memorial service for Margrit will take place on Saturday, September 20, 2025 at 10:30 am ET at University Lutheran Church, 66 Winthrop Street, Cambridge, Mass. A Zoom link will be available at www.unilu.org for those wishing to attend remotely. Contributions in Margrit's memory may be made to University Lutheran Church www.unilu.org or to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. www.dana-farber.org