Research Intern — Summer 2026

About Basis

Basis is a nonprofit applied AI research organization with two mutually reinforcing goals.

The first is to understand and build intelligence. This entails establishing the mathematical principles of reasoning, learning, decision-making, understanding, and explaining, and constructing software that embodies these principles.

The second is to advance society’s ability to solve intractable problems. This involves expanding the scale, complexity, and breadth of problems we can solve today and, more importantly, accelerating our ability to solve problems in the future.

To achieve these goals, we are building both a new technological foundation inspired by human reasoning, and a new type of collaborative organization that prioritizes human value.

About the Role

We are looking for research interns to join us for Summer 2026. Research interns work closely with scientists and engineers at Basis, both learning from and contributing to our team. Internships are open to graduate-level candidates (or equivalent), pursuing research in technical and scientific domains. Projects span machine learning, reasoning, and embodied intelligence, and may be situated within MARA, infrastructure/ML systems, or collaborative intelligent systems.

Basis is a collaborative effort, both internally and with our external partners; we are looking for people who enjoy working with others on problems larger than ones they can tackle alone.

Potential project areas

• World models and model-based reasoning
• Reinforcement learning and exploration
• Program synthesis and neuro-symbolic methods
• Robotic control and sim-to-real
• ML infrastructure, systems, and tooling for large-scale experiments

We expect you to:

• Be currently enrolled in a PhD program in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Robotics, or a related field (or have equivalent research experience).
• Have a strong background in one or more of our core research areas: world models, reinforcement learning, program synthesis, or robotic control.
• Demonstrate ability to conduct high-quality research, evidenced by publications or technical reports.
• Be excited about solving real-world problems and having positive societal impact.

Responsibilities

• Conduct independent and collaborative research under the mentorship of Basis scientists.
• Develop new algorithms and models.
• Implement and evaluate methods on relevant benchmarks or physical systems.
• Contribute to the culture and direction of Basis.
• (Optionally) Publish findings in top-tier conferences.

Role Details

• FT/PT: Full-time for the duration of the internship (typically 12 weeks).
• In-person Policy: We are in the office four days a week.
• Location: This is an in-person position in either the New York City or Cambridge, MA area.
• Salary: Competitive internship stipend.

Not sure you meet every detail? Whether it’s qualifications, work pattern, or location, exceptional candidates who don’t check every box above are still encouraged to apply.

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