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CI0314: Internship - Embodied AI & Humanoid Robotics
Join our cutting-edge research team to help advance the next generation of Embodied AI and Humanoid Robotics. As a research intern, you will develop AI technologies that enable humanoid robots to understand, reason, and interact with the physical world through complex manipulation, assembly, and tool-use tasks. This is a unique opportunity to contribute to impactful research with the goal of publishing at leading AI and robotics conferences.
What You'll Work On
Depending on your background and interests, projects may include:
- Embodied AI for dexterous manipulation, assembly, and tool use
- Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models and Foundation Models for robotic control
- World-Action Models (WAM) for long-horizon planning and decision making
- Learning from human demonstrations, teleoperation, and autonomous data collection
- Sim-to-real transfer, reinforcement learning, and real-world robot deployment
What We're Looking For
We are seeking highly motivated graduate students with:
- Strong research experience in robotics, embodied AI, machine learning, computer vision, or related fields
- Experience with deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch or JAX, and strong Python programming skills
- Familiarity with one or more of the following:
- Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models
- Foundation Models or multimodal AI
- Reinforcement learning or imitation learning
- Robot manipulation, motion planning, or control
- Agentic AI systems for robotics
Preferred qualifications:
- Hands-on experience with humanoid or loco manipulators (e.g., Unitree G1)
- Experience with teleoperation systems (e.g., Pico, Sonic)
- Experience with robotics simulators (e.g., Isaac Sim, MuJoCo, Genesis)
- Familiarity with ROS/ROS 2 and real-world robot experimentation
- Familiarity with policy deployment on edge AI devices (e.g., Jetson GPUs)
Internship Details
- Duration: Approximately 4 months
- Start Date: Flexible
- Location: Cambridge, MA
- Objective: Conduct high-impact research leading to publications at premier AI and robotics conferences (e.g., CoRL, RSS, ICRA, IROS, NeurIPS, ICML)
If you are excited about building AI that enables robots to perform complex real-world tasks—including assembly, tool use, and dexterous manipulation—we encourage you to apply.
The pay range for this internship position will be 6-8K per month.
- Research Areas: Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Machine Learning, Control, Computer Vision, Optimization, Signal Processing, Speech & Audio
- Host: Toshi Koike-Akino
- Apply Now
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OR0313: Internship - Foundation Models for Humanoid Robots
MERL is seeking a highly motivated Ph.D. student to conduct research on foundation models for humanoid robot loco-manipulation in factory automation, with a focus on understanding their capabilities, limitations, safety, and robustness. The internship will focus on developing humanoid systems for material handling tasks such as box/cart transportation, kitting, tool manipulation, failure recovery, and other mobile manipulation tasks in warehouse and manufacturing environments. The intern will collaborate closely with MERL researchers to develop novel algorithms that integrate Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models, world models, and robot control for robust long-horizon manipulation on real humanoid platforms. Successful candidates should have demonstrated research experience in embodied AI, robot learning, or computer vision, with the goal of publishing at leading robotics and AI conferences. Start date and duration is flexible.
Required Specific Experience
- Current enrollment in a Ph.D. program in Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related field.
- Hands-on research experience with Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models and/or multimodal foundation models for robotics.
- Research experience with world models for robotic planning, prediction, or decision making.
- Sim-to-real transfer and robotic simulation (Isaac Lab, MuJoCo.).
- Strong publication record or demonstrated research potential in robotics, embodied AI, computer vision, or machine learning. Must have some publications in top robotic or AI conferences / journals (e.g., RSS, ICRA, T-RO, RA-L, NeurIPS, ICML etc).
Desired Experience
- Contact-rich manipulation and force-controlled manipulation.
- Whole-body control for humanoid robots.
- Dexterous manipulation or bimanual manipulation.
- Reinforcement learning or imitation learning for robotics.
- Robot perception, 3D vision, or state estimation.
- Sim-to-real transfer and robotic simulation (Isaac Lab, MuJoCo).
- Experience deploying algorithms on humanoid platforms.
The pay range for this internship position will be 6-8K per month.
- Research Areas: Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Control
- Host: Alexander Schperberg
- Apply Now