Predoctoral Young Investigator, Robotics

The Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence•Seattle, WA

21h•Onsite

About The Position

Ai2’s Robotics team seeks a creative, early career Predoctoral Young Investigator who has a strong interest in language-model based artificial intelligence and natural language processing. Predoctoral Young Investigator (PYI) candidates have graduated with a bachelor’s or master’s degree in a relevant field and are preparing to enter a PhD program in the next 1-3 years. We also welcome applications from candidates already enrolled in a PhD program who wish to align their work with Ai2’s endeavors, and we are happy to work on a case-by-case basis with regards to work arrangements if there is a mutual fit. The Predoctoral Young Investigator position: Duration: 1-3 years Start date: Flexible Candidates: PYI Program candidates have graduated with a bachelor’s or master’s degree in a relevant field and are preparing to enter a PhD program in the next 1-2 years. We also welcome applications from candidates already enrolled in a PhD program who wish to align their work with Ai2’s endeavors, and we are happy to work on a case-by-case basis with regard to work arrangements if there is a mutual fit. Ai2's Robotics team is led by Dieter Fox. We aim to develop and leverage scalable simulation domains to scientifically investigate the scaling and generalization capabilities of foundation models for robotics, and use these insights to develop broadly competent robots. Following a longstanding tradition at Ai2, we are committed to fully open-source research and work toward application domains with a positive impact on society. We are looking for applicants interested in robotics, with a focus on core techniques in robot manipulation, large scale training in simulated environments, sim-to-real transfer, robot foundation models, and skill learning. As a Predoctoral Young Investigator on the Robotics team, you will have the opportunity to work in a variety of research areas including: Robot foundation models – Investigate the scaling and generalization properties of foundation models for robotics, and contribute to developing broadly competent robots that can operate in the real world. Manipulation and skill learning – Develop agents that manipulate objects, follow instructions, and acquire new skills across diverse tasks, in both simulation and on real robot hardware. Simulation and sim-to-real – Build and leverage scalable, GPU-accelerated simulation environments for large-scale training, and develop pipelines that transfer learned policies reliably to real-world robots. Open source research – Make substantial contributions to the fully open methods, datasets, benchmarks, and tools that enable rigorous, reproducible, and distributed experimentation. We regularly publish in high-profile conferences and journals in robotics (CoRL, ICRA, RSS), computer vision (CVPR, ICCV, ECCV), and machine learning (e.g., NeurIPS, ICLR, ICML). We collaborate frequently with researchers on other Ai2 teams focused on computer vision, large language models, and others. Our main office has close ties and unique access to researchers at the University of Washington, only 1.5 miles away.

Requirements

A bachelor’s or master’s degree in a relevant field with a desire to enter a PhD program in the next 1-3 years, or currently enrolled in a related PhD program.

Nice To Haves

Strong interest in language-model based artificial intelligence and natural language processing.
Interest in robotics, with a focus on core techniques in robot manipulation, large scale training in simulated environments, sim-to-real transfer, robot foundation models, and skill learning.

Responsibilities

Gain strong research experience through direct collaboration with Ai2 researchers.
Co-author papers with Ai2 researchers and get published in top venues.
Learn about and leverage Ai2’s data, engineering infrastructure, and research tools.
Gain industry experience in a supportive, agile, mission-driven environment.
No grant writing, teaching, or administrative responsibilities required.