Research Intern - IMAIS Group: Situated Intelligence and Multimodal Interaction in the Physical World

Research Internships at Microsoft provide a dynamic environment for research careers with a network of world-class research labs led by globally-recognized scientists and engineers, who pursue innovation in a range of scientific and technical disciplines to help solve complex challenges in diverse fields, including computing, healthcare, economics, and the environment.

The Interactive Multimodal AI Systems (IMAIS) group at Microsoft Research seeks a Research Intern to work on a project related to Situated Intelligence. The Situated Intelligence research effort aims to enable computers to reason about the physical everyday world, at human scale, and in real time, and fluidly collaborate with people in physical space. Fueled by current advances in perception, large language models, and devices, this emerging computing paradigm will generate within the next decade a new ecosystem of applications, such as systems for mixed-reality task assistance, remote collaboration, educational scenarios, social robots in homes or public spaces, intelligent factory floors, and many more. These systems require computational models for situated communicative processes anchored into reasoning about the physical context. Our work ranges from developing representations (for example, what are key variables for reasoning about turn-taking in a multiparty conversation?) to constructing inference models (for example, which of the surrounding objects is the target of my interlocutor’s attention?) to decision making (for example, should I take an action now?) and all the way to execution (for example, how should I render that action in the world, given the context?).

Responsibilities

Research Interns put inquiry and theory into practice. Alongside fellow doctoral candidates and some of the world’s best researchers, Research Interns learn, collaborate, and network for life. Research Interns not only advance their own careers, but they also contribute to exciting research and development strides. During the 12-week internship, Research Interns are paired with mentors and expected to collaborate with other Research Interns and researchers, present findings, and contribute to the vibrant life of the community. Research internships are available in all areas of research, and are offered year-round, though they typically begin in the summer.

For this Research Internship (summer 2025), our group in Redmond is seeking a PhD student with a passion for research on multimodal, situated interaction topics. Research Intern responsibilities will include (1) helping to develop and refine multimodal interactive systems involving egocentric sensors and other devices, (2) collecting, analyzing, and building models from multimodal data generated by existing systems, and (3) implementing and testing new techniques for computationally modeling social processes like turn-taking, engagement, attention, F-formations, etc.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications

• Currently enrolled in a PhD program in Computer Science or a related STEM field.
• At least 2 years of postgraduate experience, including peer-reviewed publications, researching a topic closely related to the above description, such as AI systems for mixed reality, human-robot interaction, embodied conversational agents, multimodal interaction, etc.
• At least 2 years of programming experience working with multimodal data and/or interactive systems.
• At least 1 year of experience applying multimodal machine learning models in real-time interactive systems, or at least one year of experience designing, conducting, and analyzing controlled experiments with human subjects.

Other Requirements

• Research Interns are expected to be physically located in their manager’s Microsoft worksite location for the duration of their internship.
• In addition to the qualifications below, you’ll need to submit a minimum of two reference letters for this position as well as a cover letter and any relevant work or research samples. After you submit your application, a request for letters may be sent to your list of references on your behalf. Note that reference letters cannot be requested until after you have submitted your application, and furthermore, that they might not be automatically requested for all candidates. You may wish to alert your letter writers in advance, so they will be ready to submit your letter. 

Preferred Qualifications

• Demonstrated experience in programming multimodal systems that interact with real human users, e.g., robots or virtual agents, particularly by integrating multiple machine-learned components such as computer vision, speech recognition, dialogue handling, natural language generation, etc.
• Demonstrated experience in conducting research outside of a controlled lab environment, e.g., field research, ethnography, in-the-wild studies, etc.
• Demonstrated ability to develop original research agendas.
• Must be able to collaborate effectively with other researchers and product development teams.
• Proficient interpersonal skills, cross-group, and cross-culture collaboration.

The base pay range for this internship is USD $6,550 - $12,880 per month. There is a different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, and the base pay range for this role in those locations is USD $8,480 - $13,920 per month.

Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here: https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-intern-pay 

Microsoft accepts applications and processes offers for these roles on an ongoing basis.

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances.  We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request via the Accommodation request form.

Benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work.