Research Intern, Robotics - Summer 2027

NVIDIA Corporation; Seattle (WA); On-site; USD 52,000 - 129,000; Part time

Benefits offered by this job

Intern benefits

Job summary

NVIDIA's Seattle Robotics Lab invites PhD candidates to join a team shaping the future of robotic manipulation and loco-manipulation. Work spans perception, planning, control, reinforcement learning, and simulation, with opportunities to contribute to NVIDIA products and robotics foundations.

Internship involves developing algorithms, integrating methods into real-world systems, and collaborating across teams while engaging with the academic community through publications and code releases.

Qualifications

• Pursuing a PhD in Robotics, ML, CS, EE, ME or related field.
• Strong theory and practical robotics/AI knowledge with real-world relevance.
• First-author publications in top robotics/AI venues preferred.
• Excellent Python programming skills; familiarity with C++, CUDA is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Develop algorithms, foundation models, and methods for robotic manipulation and loco-manipulation across industrial, scientific, and household applications.
• Integrate methods into real-world robotic systems including collaborative/industrial arms and mobile manipulators.
• Contribute to multi-person research projects spanning robotics and ML stacks; publish and share code when appropriate.
• Engage with academic communities through publications, conferences, and workshops.

Skills

Python

C++

CUDA

PyTorch

JAX

ROS2

Education

PhD candidate in Robotics, ML, CS, EE or ME

Tools

Isaac Sim

MuJoCo

Warp

Job description

NVIDIA is at the forefront of the AI and robotics revolution, and NVIDIA’s robotics teams are on a mission to build the essential technology that can enable any company to become a robotics company. The Seattle Robotics Lab is uniquely positioned at the intersection of open academic research and real-world industry impact, pursuing fundamental and applied robotics research across the full robotics stack, including perception, planning, control, reinforcement learning, imitation learning, simulation, and robotics foundation models. This research aims to transform research paradigms, transfer into NVIDIA’s robotics and simulation products, and create new robotics markets for the world. The Seattle Robotics Lab has published over 500 research papers, including many influential works that have been presented at top robotics, AI, and computer vision conferences. These works include BayesSim, cuRobo, DeXtreme, DiSECT, Factory, GraspNet, IndustReal, ITPS, LAPA, MimicGen, NeRD, RoboLab, RVT, ScheduleStream, and SHAC. (See our publications page for a complete list.) The work has deeply impacted the research community and NVIDIA products, including Isaac Sim, Isaac Lab, Isaac Manipulator, Isaac Lab-Arena, Cosmos, and Newton amongst others.

What you will be doing:

• Developing algorithms, foundation models, and methods for robotic manipulation and/or loco-manipulation, for industrial, scientific, and household applications; Integrating these methods into real-world robotic manipulation systems, including those consisting of collaborative robot arms, industrial robot arms, mobile manipulators, humanoids, and dexterous hands; Contributing to multi-person research projects that require a diverse set of skills across the robotics and machine learning stack; Engaging with the academic community through high-impact publications, conferences, workshops, and/or code releases; Developing AI agents to accelerate research and engineering while ensuring correctness, reproducibility, and security.

What we need to see:

• Enrolled in a PhD program in Robotics, Machine Learning, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or a related field; Knowledge of both the theory and practice of robotics and AI, with a strong interest in connecting your work to real-world robotics applications; A demonstrated track record, with first-author work published in top robotics and AI conferences and journals such as RSS, CoRL, ICRA, IJRR, T-RO, Science Robotics, NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, and EMNLP; Exceptional communication, collaboration, and interpersonal skills, with significant experience working on a team; Exceptional programming skills in Python; in addition, familiarity with C++, CUDA, and Warp is a plus; Fluency in modern deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch or JAX; Experience in AI coding and research agents, including critical validation of their outputs; Experience with robotics frameworks such as ROS2 and physics simulation frameworks such as Isaac Sim, Isaac Lab, Newton, and/or MuJoCo; Comfort in working through the complexities of simulation and real-world robotics, including debugging physics simulators and renderers under rapid development; selecting, setting up, maintaining, and enhancing complex robotics hardware; debugging communication systems; and designing robust workflows for model training and evaluation.

The following research areas and applications are of particular interest:

• Bimanual and dexterous manipulation
• Mobile manipulation and humanoid loco-manipulation
• Multimodal robot learning (e.g., vision, tactile, and force/torque sensing)
• Simulation (classical and neural), sim-to-real, real-to-sim, and world models
• Learning in the real world (e.g., imitation learning, RL)
• Robot foundation models (e.g., VLAs, WAMs, world models): pre-training, mid-training and post-training (SFT, RL, etc.) using various data sources (e.g., simulation, teleoperation, egocentric data)
• Agentic robotics
• Robot learning theory
• High-precision manipulation and reliable policy deployment
• Scientific lab automation

The Seattle Robotics Lab is primarily located in the vibrant Fremont neighborhood of Seattle.

Our internship hourly rates are a standard pay based on the position, your location, year in school, degree, and experience. The hourly rate for our interns is 38 USD - 94 USD.

You will also be eligible for Intern benefits.

Applications for this job will be accepted at least until September 25, 2026.

This posting is for an existing vacancy.

NVIDIA uses AI tools in its recruiting processes.

NVIDIA is committed to fostering an inclusive work environment and proud to be an equal opportunity employer. As we highly value diversity in our current and future employees, we do not discriminate (including in our hiring and promotion practices) on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status or any other characteristic protected by law.

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