PhD Internship: VLA Robotics for Manipulation

Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories; Cambridge (MA); On-site; USD 67,000 - 89,000; Part time

Benefits offered by this job

Relocation stipend

Travel covered to MERL

Monthly Charlie Card for commuting

Health insurance after 90 days

Job summary

Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs, Inc. (MERL) invites a highly motivated Ph.D. student to pursue research on Vision-Language-Action models for robotic manipulation.

The intern will collaborate with MERL researchers, develop novel algorithms, and test learning-based policies on real and simulated robots. The internship offers a flexible start date, a relocation stipend, covered travel, and a monthly commuting allowance, with health insurance eligibility after a waiting period.

Qualifications

• Current enrollment in a Ph.D. program.
• Strong background in robot learning for manipulation.
• Hands-on experience with Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models for robotics, such as pi0, OpenVLA, Octo, GR00T N1, or related state-of-the-art models.
• Proficiency with ROS, Python, and deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch.
• Experience with robotic simulation environments and sim-to-real transfer.
• Experience deploying and evaluating learning-based policies on physical robotic platforms.
• A strong publication record or demonstrated research potential.

Responsibilities

• Research on Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models for robotic manipulation.
• Develop and implement novel algorithms in collaboration with MERL researchers.
• Deploy and evaluate learning-based policies on robotic platforms.
• Conduct both simulation and real-world experiments.

Skills

Robot learning

ROS

Python

PyTorch

VLA models

Simulation environments

Publication record

Education

Current enrollment in a Ph.D. program

Tools

OpenVLA

Job description

Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs, Inc. (MERL) invites a highly motivated Ph.D. student to pursue research on Vision-Language-Action models for robotic manipulation.

The intern will collaborate with MERL researchers, develop novel algorithms, and test learning-based policies on real and simulated robots. The internship offers a flexible start date, a relocation stipend, covered travel, and a monthly commuting allowance, with health insurance eligibility after a waiting period.