Human Interactive Driving Intern – World Models

Toyota Research Institute (TRI) is on a mission to improve the quality of human life through innovative research in various domains. The Human Interactive Driving Intern will conduct original research at the intersection of machine learning and autonomous driving, focusing on developing novel components of world models and enhancing simulation-to-reality transfer. Responsibilities Conduct original research in one or more areas: world modeling, multi-agent interaction, reinforcement learning, perception, or simulation-to-reality transfer Collaborate closely with full-time researchers on the design, training, and evaluation of learning-based driving systems Contribute to building and experimenting with task-aware, multi-modal, and uncertainty-aware models Develop and evaluate prototypes in closed-loop simulation environments and, time permitting, on high-performance autonomous driving hardware Present research findings through internal talks and work towards a top-tier academic publication Integrate and work with large-scale datasets (open-source and internal) Skills Currently enrolled in a Ph.D. program in Computer Science, Robotics, Machine Learning, or a related field Strong background in machine learning, particularly in areas such as deep learning, generative models, reinforcement learning, or probabilistic modeling Demonstrated experience with one or more of the following: World models (e.g., latent dynamics, diffusion-based models), Model-based RL or decision-making, 3D perception or sensor fusion, and Large-scale simulation for robotics or autonomous systems Prior publication(s) in top-tier conferences (NeurIPS, ICLR, ICML, CVPR, ICRA, CoRL, etc.) Proficiency with Python and PyTorch Familiarity with AWS services (S3, EC2, and SageMaker) and open-source driving datasets (nuScenes, Waymo, Argoverse, etc.) is a plus Benefits Medical, dental, and vision insurance Paid time off benefits (including holiday pay and sick time) Company Overview Toyota Research Institute is an R&D enterprise with an initial focus on artificial intelligence and robotics. It was founded in 2016, and is headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA, with a workforce of 201-500 employees. Its website is Company H1B Sponsorship Toyota Research Institute has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships, with 10 in 2025, 7 in 2020. Please note that this does not guarantee sponsorship for this specific role.