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

Activity history (last 12 weeks)

Recent activities (last 7 days)

×4 ×2 ×1 5h 9m show details
  • run ×4 3h 18m
  • cycle ×2 1h 15m
  • swim ×1 35m
  • Fri 21 Aug
  • walk
  • 3.7 km · 44m · ↑34m · ♥ 101 bpm
  • Thu 20 Aug
  • run
  • 11.1 km · 1h 12m · ↑90m · ♥ 149 bpm
  • cycle
  • 9.1 km · 26m · ↑90m · ♥ 130 bpm
  • Wed 19 Aug
  • walk
  • 4.5 km · 57m · ↑43m · ♥ 104 bpm
  • run
  • 5.5 km · 37m · ↑35m · ♥ 155 bpm
  • Tue 18 Aug
  • run
  • 10.2 km · 55m · ↑37m · ♥ 175 bpm
  • Mon 17 Aug
  • swim
  • 1.9 km · 35m · ♥ 139 bpm
  • run
  • 5 km · 33m · ↑9m · ♥ 151 bpm
  • cycle
  • 16.1 km · 48m · ↑61m · ♥ 130 bpm
  • Sun 16 Aug
  • walk
  • 2.4 km · 32m · ↑85m · ♥ 100 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