Human-Aware Interaction and Learning Research Scientist

At Toyota Research Institute (TRI), we’re working to build a future where everyone has the freedom to move, engage, and explore with a focus on reducing vehicle collisions, injuries, and fatalities. Join us in our mission to improve the quality of human life through advances in artificial intelligence, automated driving, robotics, and materials science. We’re dedicated to building a world of “mobility for all” where everyone, regardless of age or ability, can live in harmony with technology to enjoy a better life. Through innovations in AI, we:
Develop vehicles incapable of causing a crash, regardless of the actions of the driver.Develop technology for vehicles and robots to help people enjoy new levels of independence, access, and mobility.Bring advanced mobility technology to market faster.Discover new materials that will make drive batteries and hydrogen fuel cells smaller, lighter, less expensive, and more powerful.
Our work is guided by a dedication to safety – in how we research, develop, and validate the performance of technology to benefit society. As a subsidiary of Toyota, TRI is fueled by a diverse and inclusive community of people who carry invaluable leadership, experience, and ideas from industry-leading companies.
Over half of our technical team carries PhD degrees. We’re continually searching for the world’s best talent ‒ people who are ready to define the new world of mobility with us!We strive to build a company that helps our people thrive, achieve work-life balance, and bring their best selves to work. At TRI, you will have the opportunity to enjoy the best of both worlds ‒ a fun start up environment with resourceful people who enjoy solving global problems and the financial backing to successfully achieve our goals. If you’re passionate about working with inquisitive people to make cars safer, enable the older population to age in place, or design alternative fuel sources, TRI is the place for you. ‒ Start your impossible with us.
Our Human-Aware Interaction and Learning team is looking for Research Scientists with experience in a variety of areas including Reinforcement Learning, Human Behavioral Modeling, Shared Control, Computer Vision and Human-Machine Interaction. We are aiming to make progress on a key challenge to unlock the full potential of artificial intelligence in a human world: how do we make machines more safely and effectively interact with humans to augment their capabilities?
As a Research Scientist, you will work with a multidisciplinary team proposing, conducting, and transferring innovative research in Machine Learning for human-centric applications. You will use large amounts of real-world and simulated sensory data to solve open problems, publish at top academic venues, and test your ideas in the real world (including our robots, innovative motion simulators and test vehicles of course!). You will help to transfer and ship our most successful algorithms and models towards real-world advanced assistance systems, touching millions of lives.

Responsibilities

• Conduct ambitious research in Human-Centric Artificial Intelligence that solves open problems of high practical value and validate it in real-world benchmarks and systems.
• Push the boundaries of knowledge and the state of the art in Human-Machine Interaction and Shared Control in robotics and driving contexts.
• Partner with a multidisciplinary team including other research scientists and engineers across the Human Interactive Driving team, TRI, Toyota, and our university partners.
• Stay up to date on the state-of-the-art in Machine Learning ideas and software.
• Present results in verbal and written communications, internally, at top international venues, and via open source contributions to the community.
• Lead collaborations with our external research partners (e.g., MIT, Stanford, UMich) and mentor research interns.
• Create ambitious new technologies touching concepts such as Theory of Mind, Game Theory and Motion Prediction, Collaborative AI, and Human-Machine Teaming.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in a quantitative field (e.g. Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics, Engineering, Chemistry). Ph.D. or deep expertise in one key area (Machine Learning, Robotics, Computer Vision, Human-Machine Interaction, Human Behavior Modeling) or related fields.
• Consistent track record of publishing at high-impact conferences/journals (CVPR, ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML, CoRL, RSS, ICRA, ICCV, ECCV, PAMI, IJCV, etc.).
• Proficient at scientific Python, Unix, and a common DL framework (preferably PyTorch). Experience with distributed learning (especially on AWS) is a plus.
• You can identify, propose, and lead new research projects, working in collaboration with other researchers and engineers to complete it from initial idea to working solution.
• You are passionate about developing and applying human-centric artificial intelligence for societal good.
• You are a reliable team-player.
• You like to think big and go deeper.
• You care about openness and delivering with integrity.

Please add a link to Google Scholar and include a full list of publications when submitting your CV to this position.
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TRI provides Equal Employment Opportunity without regard to the applicant's race, color, creed, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, age, physical or mental disability, medical condition, religion, marital status, genetic information, veteran status, or any other status protected under federal, state or local laws.