PhD Researcher, AI Research

Location: Toronto, ON, CAN

Employment: Full time

Job Requisition ID # 26WD101373

Position Overview

As a PhD Research intern in Autodesk Research’s AI Lab, you will explore and apply advanced machine learning techniques to empower our customers in designing and building a better, safer, and more sustainable world. We are a team of researchers, engineers, and industry domain experts working on projects that range from learning-based design systems, computer vision, graphics, robotics, human-computer interaction, sustainability, simulation, manufacturing, architectural design and construction.

We are seeking a research intern to join our research team focused on machine learning and generative methods for content creation in the media and entertainment space. In this role, you will conduct research on novel methods for character animation and related problems at the intersection of machine learning and computer graphics. Potential research directions include generative motion models, controllable character animation, data-efficient learning and adaptation, representation learning, and learning approaches that incorporate physics or simulation. The goal of this research is to enable more intuitive use of our animation tools by automating repetitive tasks.

Autodesk's AI Lab is actively engaged in the broader research community, targeting publications at top-tier conferences such as CVPR, NeurIPS, ICML, SIGGRAPH, and ICLR. We collaborate with top academic & industry labs, combining the best of an academic environment with product-driven research.

Minimum Qualifications

• Full-time student pursuing a Ph.D. in Computer Science, Computer Graphics, Computational Physics, Machine Learning or a discipline in an accredited program
• Broad understanding of machine learning and deep learning
• Excellent Programming and software development skills, with experience in Python
• Proficient with ML & DL platforms & libraries (PyTorch, TensorFlow, Keras, ONNX/Runtime, scikit-learn, etc.)
• Experience conducting research and publishing results
• An excellent communicator and team player

Preferred Qualifications

• Deep expertise in one or more areas such as computer graphics, character animation, motion generation, 2D/3D geometry representation learning, generative models, and unsupervised/self-supervised learning
• Experience with differentiable physics, data-driven computational physics, solver-driven learning (physics-in-the-loop), physics-informed models
• Experience with transfer learning, fine-tuning, few-shot learning, or other data-efficient learning methods is a plus
• Bonus: experience with physics real-time engines (such as Bullet, Unreal, or PhysX)
• Bonus: experience with modeling tools (such as Maya, Houdini, or Blender)

Responsibilities

• Conduct research on machine learning methods for character animation and related problems in media and entertainment
• Formulate research questions, conduct literature reviews, and design experiments to investigate them
• Build prototypes to test and explore concepts
• Evaluate research findings and prototypes to make recommendations for impacting business and products
• Author a full research paper
• Present the results of your research externally and internally

About the Canada PhD Research Program

The 2027 Canada Research intern program runs for 18 weeks (May 24th – Oct 1st, 2027). All internships are paid. As a research intern, you will contribute to meaningful projects, be mentored by industry leaders, and participate in tech talks and other activities designed to support your personal and professional development. Our internships align with Autodesk’s Flexible Workplace approach, which is designed to meet the needs of our business while providing flexibility in support of office, remote and hybrid work preferences.

Salary transparency

Salary is one part of Autodesk’s competitive compensation package. Offers are based on the candidate’s experience, educational level, and geographic location.

In-Person Onboarding and Identity Verification

This role may require in-person onboarding and/or in-person ID verification.