Dr. Alice James is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Advanced Drone Systems Research Centre (ADSRC) within the School of Computing at Macquarie University, Sydney. She is a specialised Robotics Research Engineer with a focus on avionics, sensing systems, and aerial robot autonomy. Alice earned her Ph.D. in Robotics Engineering from Macquarie University (2025), where she previously completed her Master of Research (2021) and Master of Engineering (2020).

Alice is a Chief Investigator and key researcher on the $2.24 Million AEA Innovate Grant (2025), a major project dedicated to the commercialization of autonomous drone battery swap technology. Her research portfolio includes high-impact work on neuromorphic vision systems for high-speed industrial applications, autonomous maritime monitoring, and swarm coordination. She holds two provisional patents for Intelligent Adaptive Balanced Lift and Mid-air Drone-to-Drone Item Handoff.

She designed the MecQaBot framework, a modular robotics platform for research and teaching, and has mentored the MQ Robotics Club to several national victories, including the QUT Droid Racing Challenge. She also mentors the MQ MARS Rover and Drone Student Societies.  Her academic excellence has been recognized with 1st Place at the 2024 Inter-University HDR Competition and receiving the 2023 Post Graduate Research Fund (PGRF).

Services

• Guest Editor for Symmetry in Robotics and Aerial Systems (MDPI).
• Chair of IEEE-Macquarie, Sydney (2019–2025).
• Vice-Chair of IEEE Women in Engineering, Sydney (2019–2025).
• Technical Reviewer for IEEE Sensors Journal, ACM MobiSys-DroNet, and ICARM.

Research Topics

• Aerial Robot Autonomy: Vision-based landing, swarm coordination, and autonomous battery servicing.
• Neuromorphic Sensing: Utilizing event-based vision for high-speed counting and environmental monitoring.
• Resilient Navigation: Stochastic control and beacon-based sensing for GNSS-denied/contested airspace.
• Collaborative Swarms: Cooperative load transportation, push-based lift, and mid-air item exchange.
• Marine Biodiversity Mapping: Deep vision and Gaussian Splatting for autonomous underwater 3D mapping.
• IoT & Mechatronics: Design of modular robotics frameworks (MecQaBot) and smart city sensor integration.

Teaching

• COMP 8291: IoT Embedded Operating Systems and Application Programming 
• MTRN 4068: Wireless Mechatronics 
• ENGG 4201/8201: IoT System Design 
• ENGG 2000/3000: Engineering Project Practice