Research Scientist, Autonomous Systems and Physical AI Research - PhD New College Grad 2026

at Nvidia

USD 168,000-264,500 per year

JUNIOR

✅ On-site

Tech Stack
Tag name is followed by "@" symbol and proficiency level value. About proficiency levels:

1-2 — basic awareness. Minimal hands-on experience, and a rudimentary understanding of the technology's purpose;

3-6 — daily use. Comfortable and regular usage, capable of handling common tasks and challenges related to the technology;

7-9 — you are an expert, you can teach others, you know all the pitfalls and tricks;

10 — exceptional knowledge, comprehensive understanding, and adeptness in all aspects of the technology, including advanced problem-solving. Think twice before claiming or demanding such level.

AI @ 3 CUDA @ 1 Communication @ 6 Deep Learning Machine Learning @ 3 Parallel Programming @ 1 PyTorch @ 3 Python @ 8 Reinforcement Learning Robotics @ 3

Details

NVIDIA's Autonomous Systems and Physical AI Research (ASPIRE) group is recruiting Research Scientists to conduct foundational research on autonomous vehicles, robotics, and physical AI. The work focuses on intelligent machines that can perceive, reason, and safely interact with people and the physical world.

The research spans foundation model design, embodied reasoning, safety, closed-loop training and evaluation, agentic workflows for physical AI development, decision-making under uncertainty, deep learning, reinforcement learning, simulation, and verification and validation of safety-critical AI systems. Researchers are encouraged to publish their work and open-source their code while collaborating with experts across autonomous vehicles, robotics, perception, simulation, and machine learning.

Responsibilities

Design and implement cutting-edge techniques for autonomous vehicles, robotics, and physical AI.
Conduct original research and publish results.
Collaborate with research colleagues, internal product teams, and external researchers.
Transfer developed technologies to relevant product groups.
Develop training paradigms that use perception and interaction to train autonomous vehicle and robot policies in closed loop.
Equip autonomous systems with online and offline assurances for safety-critical applications.
Enable vehicles and robots to navigate new environments, tasks, and embodiments.
Build systems that reason under uncertainty and interact safely and naturally with people and other agents.

Requirements

Completing or recently completing a PhD in 2026 in Robotics, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related field.
Relevant research experience in autonomous vehicles, robotics, embodied AI, or autonomous systems.
Strong knowledge of the theory and practice of vehicle or robot autonomy, or expertise in a related area with a strong interest in applying it to autonomous systems.
A track record of research excellence demonstrated through publications at leading conferences and journals such as RSS, ICRA, CoRL, IJRR, NeurIPS, ICML, CVPR, and TAC, as well as other research artifacts such as open-source software.
Exceptional Python programming skills.
Experience with machine learning frameworks such as PyTorch.
Experience with C++ and parallel programming, such as CUDA, is a plus.
Strong communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to thrive in a dynamic, research-focused team.

Benefits

Base salary range of USD 168,000 to USD 264,500, determined based on location, experience, and the pay of employees in similar positions.
Eligibility for equity and benefits.
Collaborative research environment with opportunities to influence real-world products while conducting publishable research.

Applications will be accepted at least until October 11, 2026. NVIDIA is an equal opportunity employer.