alex stephens ~/

alex stephens

navigation research · q-ctrl

oxford, uk

01about

I work on alternative navigation at Q-CTRL, developing algorithms which have been field-tested in air, land and sea. Before that, I did my PhD (ahem, DPhil) at Oxford on long-term decision making for autonomous robots.

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

Alex Stephens
02career / education

career

  • Q-CTRL
    Senior Scientist
    2026 — present

    Algorithms for magnetic and gravimetric navigation when GPS is unavailable.

  • Smith Institute
    Mathematical Consultant
    2025

    Bayesian modelling and survival analysis for clients in nuclear energy and transportation.

  • NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
    Visiting Robotics Researcher
    2019

    Lidar-based SLAM for robots in challenging environments, as part of the DARPA Subterranean Challenge.

  • Atlassian
    Software Development Intern
    2018

education

  • PhD, Decision Making for Robotics
    University of Oxford
    2020 — 2025

    Thesis: Long-term monitoring for robots with probabilistic models. Supervised by Prof. Nick Hawes and Dr Bruno Lacerda.

  • BEng (Mechatronics) & BSci (Physics, Computer Science)
    University of Sydney
    2015 — 2019

    Honours Class I & University Medal.

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