Student Austin Naylor recently presented research conducted with a faculty member at the American Physical Society March Meeting in Baltimore, Md. This is the largest physics conference in the world, with around 10,000 attendees.

Morningside College student Austin Naylor of Wyoming, Mich., recently presented research conducted with a faculty member at the American Physical Society March Meeting in Baltimore, Md.

Naylor and Laura Kinnaman, assistant professor of physics at Morningside College, conducted the research over the summer of 2014 and the fall of 2015. They used robots to model issues of public safety, crowd dynamics and pedestrian movement by programming the robots to complete random walks and correlated random walks on different terrains.

The American Physical Society works to advance and diffuse the knowledge of physics through research journals, scientific meetings, and education, outreach, advocacy and international activities. The organization’s March Meeting is the largest physics conference in the world, with around 10,000 attendees.