Intern – Physics-Based Character Motion Research 🎓

The Simulation, Optimization and Systems (SOS) Group at Autodesk Research is seeking a passionate and skilled Research Intern for Summer 2026 at our Toronto office in the MaRS Discovery District. As part of our media and entertainment research effort, this internship will explore new approaches using physics-informed AI for: character motion generation, MoCap data augmentation, and stylized motion control.

You will have the opportunity to work at the intersection of kinematic/dynamic-based simulations of various fidelities, learning-based or optimization-based control algorithms, data-driven motion generation, and more traditional computer graphics approaches such as procedural animation and motion matching. You will work closely with your mentor(s) to first scope a focused research project tailored to your background, then execute it via developing algorithms, running simulation experiments, and documenting results with the potential for publication.

Responsibilities:

• Develop and evaluate physics-informed AI algorithms for character motion generation, data augmentation, and/or stylized motion control.

• Conduct literature reviews.

• Identify fundamental and applied research questions and address them via pragmatic, iterative steps.

• Collaborate with other researchers in SOS and media & entertainment research.

• Document and present the results of your research internally and externally.

• Contribute to research publication(s) and software prototypes.