Toyota Research Institute

Robotics Intern - Large Behavior Models

Toyota Research Institute  •  $40 - $58/hr  •  Cambridge, MA (Onsite)  •  5 days ago
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Job Description

At Toyota Research Institute (TRI), we’re on a mission to improve the quality of human life. We’re developing new tools and capabilities to amplify the human experience. To lead this transformative shift in mobility, we’ve built a world-class team advancing the state of the art in AI, robotics, driving, and material sciences.
This is a summer 2026 paid 12-week internship opportunity. Please note that this internship will be an in-office role in Cambridge, MA.
The Mission We are working to create general-purpose robots capable of accomplishing a wide variety of dexterous tasks. To do this, our team is building general-purpose machine learning foundation models for dexterous robot manipulation. These models, which we call Large Behavior Models, use generative AI techniques to produce robot action from sensor data and human requests. To accomplish this, we are creating a large curriculum of embodied robot demonstration data and combining that data with a rich corpus of internet-scale text, image, and video data. We are also using high-quality simulation to augment real-world robot data with procedurally-generated synthetic demonstrations.
The Challenge We envision a future where robots assist with household chores and cooking, aid older individuals in maintaining their independence, and enable people to spend more time on the activities they enjoy most. To achieve this, robots need to be able to operate reliably in messy, unstructured environments. Our mission is to answer the question “What will it take to create truly general-purpose robots that can accomplish a wide variety of tasks in settings like human homes with minimal human supervision?”. We believe that the answer lies in using large-scale datasets of physical interaction from a variety of sources and building on the latest advances in machine learning to learn general purpose robot behaviors from this data.
The Internship We have several research thrusts under our broad mission, and we are looking for a research intern in any of these areas: -Data-efficient and general algorithms for learning robust policies leveraging multiple sensing modalities: proprioception, images, force, and dense tactile sensing. -Scaling learning approaches to large-scale models trained on diverse sources of data including web-scale text, images, and video. -Quick and efficient improvement of learned policies. Developing and deploying learned policies and complex mobile manipulator embodiments, such as humanoid robots.
The intern who joins our team will be expected to create working code prototypes, interact frequently with team members, run experiments with both simulated and real (physical) robots, and participate in publishing the work to peer-reviewed venues. We’re looking for an intern who is comfortable working with both existing large static datasets as well as a growing and dynamic corpus of robot data.
Areas of focus -Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models for mobile manipulation -Dynamic whole-body manipulation on humanoids -Cross-embodiment transfer -Universal (UMI-style or ego-centric) data collection methods -Haptic/tactile-inclusive VLA models -Integration of VLA policy methods with model-based robotics methods -Large-scale synthetic data generation and sim-to-real transfer -Post-training for continual learning

Qualifications

  • Currently pursuing a degree (Ph.D., M.S.) in Robotics, Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, or a related field.
  • Publication record at top-tier robotics/ML conferences (RSS, CoRL, ICRA, NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, CVPR, ICCV).
  • Hardware experience is strongly preferred, especially toward deploying learned policies on real robotic systems.
  • Experience with machine learning and familiarity with large datasets and models.
  • Strong software development skills in Python. Experience in C++ is very helpful, but not strictly required.
  • A “make it happen” attitude and comfort with fast prototyping and running informative experiments.
  • A passion for robotics and doing research grounded in important fundamental problems.

Bonus Qualifications

  • Hands-on experience with using machine learning for learned control, including behavior cloning and/or reinforcement learning, for manipulation.
  • Hardware experience is strongly preferred, especially toward deploying learned policies on real robotic systems.
  • Experience with machine learning and familiarity with large datasets, models, and benchmarks.
  • System integration skills, including using state-of-the-art ML tools, databases, etc.
The pay range for this position at commencement of employment is expected to be between $40 and $58/hour for Massachusetts-based roles. Base pay offered will depend on multiple individualized factors, including, but not limited to, a candidate's experience, skills, job-related knowledge, and market location. TRI offers a generous benefits package including medical, dental, and vision insurance, and paid time off benefits (including holiday pay and sick time). Additional details regarding these benefit plans will be provided if an employee receives an offer of employment.
Please reference this Candidate Privacy Notice to inform you of the categories of personal information that we collect from individuals who inquire about and/or apply to work for Toyota Research Institute, Inc. or its subsidiaries, including Toyota A.I. Ventures GP, L.P., and the purposes for which we use such personal information.
TRI is fueled by a diverse and inclusive community of people with unique backgrounds, education and life experiences. We are dedicated to fostering an innovative and collaborative environment by living the values that are an essential part of our culture. We believe diversity makes us stronger and are proud to provide Equal Employment Opportunity for all, without regard to an applicant’s race, color, creed, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, age, physical or mental disability, medical condition, religion, marital status, genetic information, veteran status, or any other status protected under federal, state or local laws.
It is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability. Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records for employment.
Toyota Research Institute

About Toyota Research Institute

At Toyota Research Institute (TRI), we’re conducting research to amplify human ability, focusing on making our lives safer and more sustainable. Led by Dr. Gill Pratt, TRI’s team of researchers develops technologies to advance automated driving, energy and materials, human-centered artificial intelligence, human interactive driving, large behavior models, and robotics. We’re dedicated to building a world of “mobility for all” where everyone, regardless of age or ability, can live in harmony with technology to enjoy a better life. Through innovations in AI, we will:

- Develop technology for vehicles and robots to help people enjoy new levels of independence, access, and mobility.

- Bring advanced mobility technology to market faster.

- Discover new materials that will make batteries and hydrogen fuel cells smaller, lighter, less expensive, and more powerful.

Our work is guided by a dedication to safety – in how we research, develop, and validate the performance of vehicle technology to benefit society. As a subsidiary of Toyota, TRI is fueled by a diverse and inclusive community of people who carry invaluable leadership, experience, and ideas from industry-leading companies. Over half of our technical team holds PhD degrees. We’re continually searching for the world’s best talent ‒ people who are ready to define the new world of mobility with us!

We strive to build a company that helps our people thrive, achieve work-life balance, and bring their best selves to work. At TRI, you will have the opportunity to enjoy the best of both worlds ‒ a fun start-up environment with brilliant people who enjoy solving tough problems and the financial backing to successfully achieve our goals. Come work with TRI if you’re interested in transforming mobility through designing safer cars, enabling the elderly to age in place, or designing alternative fuel sources. Start your impossible with us.

Industry
Biotech & Life Sciences
Company Size
201-500 employees
Headquarters
Los Altos, California
Year Founded
2016
Website
tri.global
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