Tairan He, second-year Ph.D. student at the Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute has been awarded the 2025-2026 NVIDIA Graduate Fellowship. He will receive the prestigious fellowship alongside just 9 other students selected from applicants worldwide.
For 24 years, NVIDIA has invited Ph.D. students to submit their research proposals for consideration, with a particular emphasis on accelerated computing in areas such as artificial intelligence, robotics, and autonomous vehicles. The fellowship awards up to $60,000 per student to support their academic pursuits while granting them access to a wide range of NVIDIA technologies and resources. As part of the program, students must complete an in-person summer internship prior to the fellowship year. Tairan previously interned at NVIDIA in the summer of 2024 and will complete another internship this summer at the Santa Clara, California location.
Tairan researches the development of humanoid robots, with a focus on advancing whole-body athletic skills with large-scale simulation-to-real learning. For the award, he submitted a statement that encapsulates his past and current work, such as H2O and OmniH2O.
“I want to push the boundaries of what humanoid robots can do,” said Tairan. “I’m aiming to equip these robots with athletic skills that are comparable to human abilities.”
Tairan works closely with professors Guanya Shi and Changliu Liu at the Robotics Institute, where he works hands-on designing, training, and refining humanoid robots, spending ample time locating and replacing even the smallest bits of hardware to ensure peak performance. Over the next year, the NVIDIA fellowship will support his work in advancing and adapting humanoid robots to equip them with exceptional levels of athleticism and dexterity.
“This award is a recognition of joint efforts,” said Tairan. “All of these projects are a result from a lot of collaboration, which I feel very lucky to be a part of.”
Read more about the fellowship program on the NVIDIA blog.
For More Information: Aaron Aupperlee | 412-268-9068 | aaupperlee@cmu.edu