Join Us

Current Duke Students:

Research positions for current students at Duke (both Undergraduate and Master students) are always available.

Please contact Boyuan Chen to set up an appointment to discuss options. Please see Research Topics section for topics that we are excited about.

Backgrounds relate to one of the following fields (but not limited to them) are helpful: ME, CS, EE, DS, Applied Math and Physics.

Prospective PhD Students:

PhD positions at the General Robotics Lab at Duke University can be applied for either through Mechanical Engineering and Material Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, or Computer Science. Our lab accepts about 2-3 new PhD students per year. Students do not need a master degreee to apply for PhD positions. Please mention my name in your application if you are interested in our lab.

You are welcome to contact Boyuan Chen directly if you have specific questions about our research, or about how your interests might line up with lab activities and plans. If you send an email, please briefly state your interests and describe any research experience you have. It is always helpful to include links to your CV, PDFs of any reports or publications you have coauthored, and links to videos that show your work.

We provide full financial support for all our PhD students through research assistantships (RAs) and fellowships. We also support and encourage students to apply various sources of scholarships or fellowships that are available to you. Great health insurance is also provided to all PhD students.

Visiting Students:

We may have visiting or internship positions depending on our research schedule. Please contact Boyuan Chen to discuss possible options.

Research Topics:

We are broadly interested in both the hardware and software development of AI-enabled Robotics which may cover fields like Robot Learning, Computer Vision, Languages, Machine Learning and Robot Design in general. We also believe that fundemental AI technologies will assist and enable further progress in the general natural Science domains. Under this direction, we are also interested in data-driven dynamical system modeling for control and neuroscience research.

Our lab currently focuses on the following major topics:

• Multi-modality robot perception.
• Continual robot learning under dynamic and uncertain environments.
• Human-AI teaming.
• AI for computational design and robot control.
• Data-driven dynamical system modeling and control.

Some of our research philosophies:

• We value creative design and research on robot hardware such as platform, morphology, and sensors.
• We also emphasize the research of intelligent algorithms for machines to smartly interact and act in the complex real world.
• We constantly think about how to bring robots "from lab to the real world" and how to make them truly "generalizable".
• We often look at the arts and science of related fields such as Biology, Physics, Topology, Cognitive Science, Psychology and Neuroscience.

Students from all levels in our lab often drive their own research. Specific research themes will be discussed between the student and Boyuan. If any of our previous and ongoing research, or the above domains excite you, it is likely that together we will find a new exciting project for you too.