Student Research Assistant in Unity Frontend & LLM Backend Development for Digital Einstein

Develop and maintain the Unity frontend for the Digital Einstein platform, including UI components, interaction flows, character behaviours, and real-time rendering features

Develop and maintain the Python/LLM backend for interactive conversations, including the integration and evaluation of large language models and related AI services

Test and improve the reliability, latency, and overall interaction quality of the system

On-site support at selected events and demonstrations

Participate in weekly team meetings (1–2 hours) to discuss progress and plan next steps

Workload: approximately 15 hours/week during the semester, with the possibility of working more during semester breaks

The Digital Character AI team at ETH Zurich's Computer Graphics Laboratory works on lifelike digital humans powered by large language models, affective computing, speech technologies, and real-time rendering. Its systems have been deployed at high-profile international events such as the World Economic Forum, Berlin Science Week, and GITEX.

Digital Einstein is an AI avatar platform that brings Albert Einstein to life as an interactive conversational agent. The system combines a Unity-based frontend for real-time character rendering, animation, and interaction with a Python-based backend that orchestrates large language models, dialogue management, speech processing, memory, and other AI components. The platform is being extended to additional interactive digital characters.

ETH Zurich is one of the world’s leading universities specialising in science and technology. It is renowned for excellent education, cutting-edge fundamental research and direct transfer of new knowledge into society. Over 30,000 people from more than 120 countries work and study there. Located in the heart of Europe, ETH Zurich works with connections around the world to develop solutions for global challenges.

• Enrolled student at ETH Zurich or another Swiss university

• Strong programming skills and practical software-development experience

• Experience with Unity and C#

• Experience with Python

• Experience with or strong interest in large language models, including LLM APIs, prompting, agentic systems, or dialogue systems

• Reliable, proactive, and comfortable working independently as well as in a team

• Willingness to provide occasional on-site event support, including on weekends

• German language skills are a plus