about

Hi, I'm Alex!

I work on GPS-free magnetic navigation at Q-CTRL. I did my PhD (ahem, DPhil) at Oxford in long-term decision making for autonomous robots. My research interests are in probabilistic robotics, state estimation, and quantum sensing.

Outside of work, I'm into triathlon, parkrun, fantasy/sci-fi books, speedcubing.

Alex Stephens
career
  • Q-CTRL
    Senior Scientist
  • Smith Institute
    Mathematical Consultant
  • NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
    Visiting Robotics Researcher
  • Atlassian
    Software Development Intern
education
  • PhD, Decision Making for Robotics
    University of Oxford
  • BEng (Mechatronics) & BSci (Physics, Computer Science)
    University of Sydney
fitness

Year in sport

M W F Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep
run cycle swim gym walk other

Activity history (last 12 weeks)

Recent activities (last 7 days)

×3 ×4 6h 16m show details
  • run ×4 4h 48m
  • cycle ×3 1h 27m
  • Tue 8 Sep
  • cycle
  • 4.5 km · 13m · ↑103m · ♥ 114 bpm
  • Sun 6 Sep
  • run
  • 30.2 km · 2h 57m · ↑128m · ♥ 166 bpm
  • Sat 5 Sep
  • run
  • 5 km · 45m · ↑21m · ♥ 139 bpm
  • Fri 4 Sep
  • walk
  • 4.5 km · 57m · ↑41m · ♥ 107 bpm
  • walk
  • 4.3 km · 49m · ↑30m · ♥ 109 bpm
  • Thu 3 Sep
  • run
  • 5.5 km · 37m · ↑70m · ♥ 150 bpm
  • cycle
  • 10.6 km · 35m · ↑84m · ♥ 126 bpm
  • Wed 2 Sep
  • run
  • 5.3 km · 29m · ↑8m · ♥ 164 bpm
  • cycle
  • 11.7 km · 38m · ↑44m · ♥ 132 bpm

Sports

  • Triathlon: raced distances from Sprint to 70.3 ("half ironman") Proudest race: Brutal Half (1.9k swim / 94k bike / 23.6k run up Snowdon)
  • Running: completed 2 marathons, ran every street in Oxford (>1400!) 5k20:35 10k43:25 Half1:37:07 Marathon3:59:38

parkrun ↗

  • Completed 188 parkruns at 65 locations Latest: University Parks #231 on 25 Jul 2026 (25:43)
  • Volunteered 302 times Co-Event DirectorUniversity Parks parkrun Core Team VolunteerFlorence Park juniors