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Research Internships at Microsoft provide a dynamic environment for research careers with a network of world-class research labs led by globally-recognized scientists and engineers, who pursue innovation in a range of scientific and technical disciplines to help solve complex challenges in diverse fields, including computing, healthcare, economics, and the environment.

Join **Human Intelligence** team in **Windows A** **pplied Sciences Group** to advance **multimodal face normalization** and **RGB+NIR recognition** for secure sign-in experiences (e.g., Windows Hello). We explore techniques that transform diverse, cross-modal inputs into robust identity representations; improve invariance to pose/illumination/occlusion; and pursue compute-efficient perception for real-world deployment. We emphasize scientific rigor, reproducibility, and user-centric evaluation at production scale.

Responsibilities

Research Interns put inquiry and theory into practice. Alongside fellow doctoral candidates and some of the world’s best researchers, Research Interns learn, collaborate, and network for life. Research Interns not only advance their own careers, but they also contribute to exciting research and development strides. During the 12-week internship, Research Interns are paired with mentors and expected to collaborate with other Research Interns and researchers, present findings, and contribute to the vibrant life of the community. Research internships are available in all areas of research, and are offered year-round, though they typically begin in the summer.

Additional Responsibilities

+ **Research & prototype** methods in areas such as:

+ **Unified face normalization across modalities** (e.g., RGB↔NIR), with joint prototype + feature learning and cross-modal alignment.

+ **Multimodal face recognition** (fusion across RGB, NIR, depth/IR, audio cues where appropriate), with robustness/fairness under distribution shift.

+ **Large Language Models-aided face verification** : explore Vision Language Models (VLM)/Large Language Models (LLM) pipelines that (i) use visual context in the photo (attributes, scene cues, spatiotemporal hints) to assist verification; (ii) provide interpretable rationales; and (iii) improve failure detection and human-in-the-loop triage.

+ **Efficiency & reliability** : distillation/quantization/pruning, lightweight encoders/normalizers, calibration and uncertainty, liveness/antispoof integration.

+ **Evaluate thoroughly** : define datasets and protocols; run ablations and benchmarks (ROC, EER, TPR@FAR, latency/memory, fairness/robustness).

+ **Production immersion** : learn Windows Hello-style pipelines (signals, constraints, on-device considerations) to align research with deployment.

+ **Publish** : communicate results via talks, internal tech reports, and submissions to top venues.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications

+ Currently enrolled in a **Master’s or Ph.D.** program in **CS, EE, Applied Math** , or related field with a focus in **vision/graphics/ML** .

Other Requirements

+ Research Interns are expected to be physically located in their manager’s Microsoft worksite location for the duration of their internship.

+ In addition to the qualifications below, you’ll need to submit a minimum of two reference letters for this position as well as a cover letter and any relevant work or research samples. After you submit your application, a request for letters may be sent to your list of references on your behalf. Note that reference letters cannot be requested until after you have submitted your application, and furthermore, that they might not be automatically requested for all candidates. You may wish to alert your letter writers in advance, so they will be ready to submit your letter.

Preferred Qualifications

+ Publications in CVPR/ICCV/ECCV/NeurIPS/ICLR/ICML/SIGGRAPH or related journals.

+ Experience in face recognition/verification, multimodal learning/fusion, metric learning, representation or generative modeling.

+ Depth in **multimodal normalization** (pre-FR normalizers, prototype learning) and **RGB↔NIR FR** .

+ Experience with **VLMs/LLMs** (prompting, fine-tuning, tool-use) for visual reasoning, explainability, or safety.

+ Scalable training (DDP/multi-node), dataset curation, reproducible MLOps; familiarity with liveness/FAS and fairness/robustness evaluation.

+ Proficient PyTorch/JAX background; ability to implement/reproduce SOTA.

Applied Sciences IC2 - The base pay range for this internship is USD $5,610 - $11,010 per month.

There is a different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, and the base pay range for this role in those locations is USD $7,270 - $12,030 per month.

Applied Sciences IC3 - The base pay range for this internship is USD $6,710 - $13,270 per month.

Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here: https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-intern-pay

Microsoft accepts applications and processes offers for these roles on an ongoing basis throughout the academic calendar (September - April).

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. Consistent with applicable law, all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, citizenship, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, immigration status, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran or military status, race, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations (https://careers.microsoft.com/v2/global/en/accessibility.html) .