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alex@astephens.dev
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
    2026 — present
  • Smith Institute
    Mathematical Consultant
    2025
  • NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
    Visiting Robotics Researcher
    2019
  • Atlassian
    Software Development Intern
    2018
education
  • PhD, Decision Making for Robotics
    University of Oxford
    2020 — 2025
  • BEng (Mechatronics) & BSci (Physics, Computer Science)
    University of Sydney
    2015 — 2019
fitness

Year in sport

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

Activity history (last 12 weeks)

Recent activities (last 7 days)

×3 2h 50m ▸ show details
  • run ×3 2h 50m
  • Thu 15 Oct
  • walk
  • 3.1 km · 41m · ↑18m · ♥ 109 bpm
  • run
  • 6.1 km · 38m · ↑10m · ♥ 152 bpm
  • Wed 14 Oct
  • run
  • 5.4 km · 33m · ↑26m · ♥ 152 bpm
  • Sun 11 Oct
  • run
  • 21.3 km · 1h 38m · ↑64m · ♥ 188 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