About me

I am Kei Yoshida (pronounced /ˈkeɪ/, just like the letter K; 吉田 慶 in Japanese). I will start as a postdoctoral researcher in August 2026 at the University of Groningen, working with Dr. Tom Postmes on the <a href=”https://www.rug.nl/news/2025/11/erc-synergy-grant-voor-baanbrekend-onderzoek-naar-de-natuurkunde-en-psychologie-van-menigten?lang=en”target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>CrowdING project</a>.

My research interests lie in the ways pedestrians in motion perceive and act in dynamic environments, and in how their local interactions scale up to global patterns of crowd behavior. In my PhD, I investigated mechanisms of pedestrian influence and following behavior in crowd dynamics – specifically, how pedestrians influence and follow each other’s movement and how these influences propagate through crowds.

Through my dissertation work and prior research, I have developed a strong interest in locomotion and navigation of humans and other animals, as well as transportation safety research involving pedestrian and vehicular contexts.

More broadly, I am interested in various methodological approaches for analyzing complex systems, including network analysis, information theory, and agent-based models. I am particularly passionate about connecting computational frameworks with social sciences.

I earned my PhD in Cognitive Science from Brown University in 2026, where I worked with Dr. William H. Warren in the Virtual Environment Navigation Lab (VENLab) within the Department of Cognitive and Psychological Sciences. Alongside my PhD, I also completed a MSc in Computer Science as a concurrent degree through Brown’s Open Graduate Education program.

Before Brown, I earned my BA in Psychology and Computer Science at Coe College, where Dr. Benjamin Chihak introduced me to the world of locomotion and transportation safety research in natural and virtual environments.