Robotics Research Intern — World Action Models

Toyota Research Institute Inc.; Cambridge (MA); Hybrid; USD 55,000 - 80,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical insurance

Dental insurance

Vision insurance

paid time off

Job summary

Toyota Research Institute (TRI) invites talented researchers to join a 12-week internship program in Massachusetts. This hybrid in-office position offers hands-on work on world models, robotics, and learning for humanoid platforms, with opportunities to run experiments in simulation and on real robots.

You'll collaborate with researchers and engineers, adapt pre-trained world foundation models, and contribute to publications and open-source releases.

Qualifications

• Currently pursuing a Ph.D. or M.S. in Robotics, Computer Science, Machine Learning, Mechanical Engineering, or a related field.
• Experience training or fine-tuning large models (e.g., VLMs, VLAs, or video/world models) on large datasets.
• Strong Python skills and fluency with a deep learning framework such as PyTorch. C++ experience is helpful but not required.

Responsibilities

• Conduct original research on world action models for robot policy, from problem definition through experiments and analysis.
• Mid-train, fine-tune, or post-train world action models, and evaluate them in simulation and on humanoids or mobile manipulators.
• Design evaluations that measure long-horizon task success and the quality of interaction with people.
• Collaborate with researchers and engineers across teams, the Robotics division, and our university partners.
• Share results through internal presentations, peer-reviewed publications, and open-source releases where appropriate.

Skills

Python

PyTorch

Deep learning

C++ (helpful)

Education

Ph.D. or MS in Robotics/CS/ML/ME

Tools

Job description

Toyota Research Institute (TRI) invites talented researchers to join a 12-week internship program in Massachusetts. This hybrid in-office position offers hands-on work on world models, robotics, and learning for humanoid platforms, with opportunities to run experiments in simulation and on real robots.

You'll collaborate with researchers and engineers, adapt pre-trained world foundation models, and contribute to publications and open-source releases.