Future Product Innovation Research Intern, Human-AI Computational Design

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 paid 12-week internship opportunity and is a hybrid, in-office role.

Here’s a glimpse into the Internship experience from some of our TRI interns!

The Team

This internship opportunity falls within the Human-Centered AI Division (HCAI). We are an integrated team of ML researchers, behavior scientists, and human-computer interaction experts. At the core of our work, we aim to create purposeful human futures enabled through technology.

The Internship

We are seeking a highly motivated PhD research intern to join our Future Product Innovation team and advance the frontiers of Generative AI for automotive product design. The ideal candidate will have a strong background in Machine Learning or a related field, with a demonstrated interest in developing rigorous quantitative and human-centered methods to evaluate and improve generative AI systems. In this project, the intern will explore models for 3D parametric design generation and reasoning, with a particular focus on evaluating design quality, intent alignment, and decision-making under complex constraints and trade-offs.

Over the course of the project, in addition to Future Product Innovation group meetings, the intern will also participate in all Human-Centered AI division meetings and meetings with stakeholders from relevant Toyota business groups. The intern will be exposed to how interdisciplinary industrial research works and learn from our team as well as the other interns in our division. Furthermore, the intern will engage in strategy discussions about how their research connects to business impact at Toyota.

Responsibilities

• In collaboration with your mentor and the other researchers in the department, you will:
• Scope the project to align to the core research efforts;
• Be the primary driver of the technical plan (e.g., model development, analysis plan) with regular feedback from mentors;
• Execute the project using TRI resources; and
• Present the project’s approach and findings in research meetings.

Qualifications

• Currently enrolled in a PhD program in Machine Learning, Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, or related fields.
• Experience with 3D parametric design, deep generative models, and relevant tools (e.g., build123d, Blender, pythonocc-core).
• Experience developing subjective evaluation methods for generative and predictive models.
• Track record of executing research projects including publications at top venues including but not limited to NeurIPS, EMNLP, ACL, ICML.
• Desire to work on challenging open-ended research projects.
• Demonstrated ability to work autonomously while soliciting feedback.
• Excellent communication and teamwork skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience adapting models to specific tasks through post-training techniques.
• Strong engineering skills, with the ability to independently prototype research solutions.

The pay range for this position at commencement of employment is expected to be between $45 and $65/hour for California-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.

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