PhD Opportunities in Reinforcement Learning in United States

Google Research is seeking a PhD research intern for 2027 to work with Yongshuo Zong in Mountain View, United States. The opportunity is with the MedGemma team, which develops open-weight multimodal foundation models for healthcare. Research topics include multimodal reinforcement learning, AI agents, and related research directions for healthcare. The intern will work directly with Yongshuo Zong and contribute to a focused research team within Google Research. Applicants should review the linke...

Jue Wang, incoming Assistant Professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK), is recruiting 2–3 PhD students and postdoctoral researchers for Spring/Fall 2027 . The new lab will launch in January 2027 in the Department of Mechanical/Aerospace Engineering as part of UTK’s Foundational AI cluster . Research directions include bio-inspired and soft robotics , embodied AI , reinforcement learning , physics-informed AI , mechanical intelligence , programmable shape morphing , 3D-printed sof...

UCLA Mobility Lab is advertising multiple openings for PhD students , postdoctoral scholars , and research engineers in Physical AI for Autonomous Driving , V2X , Robotics , and Mobility Intelligence . The positions are led by Prof. Jiaqi Ma at the University of California, Los Angeles , with work spanning the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Department of Computer Science. Research themes include generative AI for safe autonomy, embodied reasoning, safety-aware intellig...

Sarper Aydın, Assistant Professor in the Department of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering at the University of South Florida, is looking for motivated PhD students to join his research group starting in Fall 2027. The group’s research interests include multi-agent systems , game theory , optimization , reinforcement learning , and networked autonomous systems . The post highlights a preference for students with a strong mathematical background and an interest in building theoretical a...

Arezoo Hasankhani, Assistant Professor at the University of New Hampshire , is recruiting a fully funded PhD student for the Energy Control and Optimization (ECO) Lab starting Spring 2027 . The project focuses on control theory , reinforcement learning , and their applications to cyber-physical systems . The post is especially relevant for students interested in energy control, optimization, and advanced modeling of engineered systems. Applicants should have a strong background in electrical eng...

Yue Jiang, Assistant Professor in Computer Science at the University of Utah, is actively looking for new students, including PhD students for Fall 2027 . The group works on technical HCI and human-centered AI, with research interests in generative UI , UI agents , eye tracking , digital accessibility , AR/VR , and related areas. Projects are described as primarily computational, focusing on building AI models that simulate user behavior and adaptive systems end to end, then evaluating them agai...

Aritra Mitra, Assistant Professor at North Carolina State University, is looking to hire a PhD student for Fall 2027. The position is centered on data-driven control , reinforcement learning , reliable machine learning , and multi-agent systems , with an emphasis on combining fundamental theory and algorithms with real systems. The post also highlights NC State’s growing robotics ecosystem and collaborative opportunities across departments. Ideal applicants should have a strong technical backgro...