Robotics Research Intern — Human‑Robot Interaction

Toyota Research Institute Inc.; Los Altos (CA); Hybrid; USD 62,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

Toyota Research Institute (TRI) invites talented Ph.D. candidates to join a summer research internship in California, exploring human-robot interaction with quadruped robots. The role blends prototyping, data collection, and learning-based model development on real robot hardware.

You will work with a multidisciplinary team, run user studies, and present findings for potential publication. This 12-week hybrid in-office internship provides hands-on experience at the forefront of AI, robotics, and

Qualifications

• Pursuing a Ph.D. in Human-Computer Interaction, Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, Cognitive Science, Robotics, Machine Learning or a related field.
• Experience integrating hardware and software for real-time interactive robotic systems (e.g., Python, C++, ROS2).
• Familiarity with HRI, data-driven behavioral modeling, machine learning, or studying collaborative teamwork dynamics.

Responsibilities

• Integrate and prototype interactions of quadruped robots and humans to study teamwork and collaboration.
• Develop, train, and evaluate learning-based models for human behavior, robot decision-making, or adaptive human-robot interaction.
• Integrate and deploy learned models and policies on physical robots, evaluating their effectiveness, robustness, and real-time performance.
• Design and run user studies to investigate mental model creation (Theory of Mind) and multimodal cueing during human-robot interaction.
• Collaborate with a multidisciplinary team of research scientists and engineers across Toyota Research Institute.
• Communicate findings through clear verbal presentations and well-structured written reports, including potential submissions to top international venues.

Skills

Python

C++

ROS2

Human-robot interaction

Education

Ph.D. in HCI / CS / ME / Robotics or related

Job description

Toyota Research Institute (TRI) invites talented Ph.D. candidates to join a summer research internship in California, exploring human-robot interaction with quadruped robots. The role blends prototyping, data collection, and learning-based model development on real robot hardware.

You will work with a multidisciplinary team, run user studies, and present findings for potential publication. This 12-week hybrid in-office internship provides hands-on experience at the forefront of AI, robotics, and