Human Interactive Driving Intern – World Models

About the role#

Toyota Research Institute is seeking a Ph.D. Research Intern to join the Human Interactive Driving team for the Fall 2026 term. This role focuses on developing a world foundation model for driving—a unified representation of driving knowledge derived from large-scale real-world and simulated data. You will work alongside researchers to tackle challenges in multi-agent interaction, causal reasoning, and embodied intelligence.

What you'll do#

• Conduct original research in world modeling, multi-agent interaction, reinforcement learning, perception, or simulation-to-reality transfer.
• Collaborate with full-time researchers on the design, training, and evaluation of learning-based driving systems.
• Build and experiment with task-aware, multi-modal, and uncertainty-aware models.
• Develop and evaluate prototypes in closed-loop simulation environments.
• Present research findings through internal talks and work toward academic publication in top-tier conferences.

What you'll need#

• Current enrollment in a Ph.D. program in Computer Science, Robotics, Machine Learning, or a related field.
• Strong background in machine learning, including deep learning, generative models, reinforcement learning, or probabilistic modeling.
• Demonstrated experience with world models, model-based RL, 3D perception, or large-scale simulation for robotics.
• Prior publication in top-tier conferences such as NeurIPS, ICLR, ICML, CVPR, ICRA, or CoRL.
• Proficiency with Python and PyTorch.
• Academic background in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Data Science, Mathematics, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, or Physics.

Location & details#

• Location: Los Altos, California.
• Term: Fall 2026 (12 weeks).
• Modality: Hybrid, in-office.
• Employment: Full-time, paid internship.
• Sponsorship: Not provided.