PhD Research Intern, Gaming Research - 2026

NVIDIA has been transforming computer graphics, PC gaming, and accelerated computing for more than 25 years. It’s a unique legacy of innovation that’s fueled by great technology—and amazing people. Today, we’re tapping into the unlimited potential of AI to define the next era of computing. An era in which our GPU acts as the brains of computers, robots, and self-driving cars that can understand the world. Doing what’s never been done before takes vision, innovation, and the world’s best talent. As an NVIDIAn, you’ll be immersed in a diverse, supportive environment where everyone is inspired to do their best work. Come join the team and see how you can make a lasting impact on the world.

We, the Human Performance and Experience (HPX) team at NVIDIA Research, strive to lead AI innovation by deeply understanding humans. We are looking for individuals who are passionate about gaming, play, and enabling new gameplay modalities through novel understanding of human behavior and AI. You will be working in a team of research scientists and engineers from varied backgrounds and closely collaborating with product engineers. Join us in transforming the future of AI and human interaction.

What you’ll be doing:

• Decompose research questions into smaller, more manageable parts and tackle them in iterative steps.

• Think critically to identify unseen gaps, and creatively bridge them with non-traditional, high-impact solutions.

• Connect with researchers and product engineers to ground research findings in real-world problems.

• Lead knowledge dissemination effort, with options for conference, journal, and in-house publication.

What we need to see:

• Currently pursuing a Ph.D. in the field of Computer Science/Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or related fields.

• Experience in gaming and/or human behavior in related application domains, demonstrated by one or more lead-author publications.

• Examples of public portfolios (e.g. repositories, OSS contributions, notebooks, packages, or technical blog posts with code).

• Proficiency with Python, Rust, and/or C++.

• Experience with AI model training and evaluation frameworks, like PyTorch.

• Comfortable with modern software development and version-control systems (e.g., GitHub/lab). 

• Familiarity with and interest in modern deep learning models, including working with large-scale, multi-modal foundation models (such as recent LLMs, VLMs).

• Strong understanding of deep learning fundamentals and recent trends.

Ways to stand out from the crowd:

• Experience with multi-node, multi-GPU training and inference workflows.

• Proficiency in crafting, implementing, and conducting behavioral experiments involving human subjects and interactive visual stimuli.

• Experience with quantitatively modeling human perception, movement, and decision-making.

• A track record of applying human behavior models to machine learning applications.

Our internship hourly rates are a standard pay based on the position, your location, year in school, degree, and experience. The hourly rate for our interns is 30 USD - 94 USD.

You will also be eligible for Intern benefits. ​

Applications for this job will be accepted at least until November 3, 2025. NVIDIA is committed to fostering a diverse work environment and proud to be an equal opportunity employer. As we highly value diversity in our current and future employees, we do not discriminate (including in our hiring and promotion practices) on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status or any other characteristic protected by law.