Internship - Embodied AI & Humanoid Robotics

Internship Openings

18 Intern positions are currently open.

Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs, Inc. "MERL" provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability or genetics. In addition to federal law requirements, MERL complies with applicable state and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment in every location in which the company has facilities. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training.

MERL expressly prohibits any form of workplace harassment based on race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, genetic information, disability, or veteran status. Improper interference with the ability of MERL's employees to perform their job duties may result in discipline up to and including discharge.

Working at MERL requires full authorization to work in the U.S and access to technology, software and other information that is subject to governmental access control restrictions, due to export controls. Employment is conditioned on continued full authorization to work in the U.S and the availability of government authorization for the release of these items, which might include without limitation, obtaining an export license or other documentation. MERL may delay commencement of employment, rescind an offer of employment, terminate employment, and/or modify job responsibilities, compensation, benefits, and/or access to MERL facilities and information systems, as MERL deems appropriate, to ensure practical compliance with applicable employment law and government access control restrictions.

In addition to base pay, interns receive a relocation stipend, covered travel to and from MERL, and a monthly Charlie Card for local commuting. Interns are invited to participate in weekly social gatherings and professional development opportunities, including research talks by both internal and external speakers. Interns who meet the 90-day waiting period are also eligible for health insurance coverage. MERL provides immigration support for qualified candidates as needed. Employment is considered "at-will," and the Company reserves the right to modify base salary or any other compensation program at any time, including for reasons related to individual performance, departmental or Company performance, and market conditions.

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.