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.

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

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)

• 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.

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.