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CONTRIBUTED PHOTO FROM CRYSTAL EVANS -- Recent graduates of Louisiana School for Math, Science and the Arts met up with other alumni of LSMSA while touring the companies where they work in Silicon Valley: Adobe, Apple, Google, Twitter, Twitch and Catalia Health. Touring, from left, are Nikhil Gopalam, of Prairieville; Mark Prutz, of Baton Rouge; Eric Kuehne, software engineer at Apple and 1995 graduate of LSMSA; and Benjamin Lane, of Zachary. Gopalam and Prutz graduated in 2016 while Lane graduated in 2013.

A visit to Adobe was the highlight of a recent tech tour of companies in Silicon Valley in San Francisco taken by graduates and an instructor from the Louisiana School for Math, Science and the Arts.

Trip attendees included Benjamin Lane, of Zachary, a 2013 graduate of LSMSA studying physics at LSU; Nikhil Gopalam, of Prairieville, a 2016 graduate who plans to study industrial engineering at the University of Michigan in the fall; and Mark Prutz, of Baton Rouge, who also graduated in 2016. John Pritchard, senior director of engineering at Adobe, is a 1988 graduate of LSMSA, and Eric Robinson, architect at Adobe, is from the Class of 1993.

“John (Pritchard) and Eric (Robinson) were so hospitable to us,” said Sanjeetha Peters, organizer of the Silicon Valley trip and senior lecturer of computer science and math at LSMSA. “They set up a tour of Adobe and also had a panel of their engineers talk to us about their work and answer questions.”

The recent graduates visited Apple, meeting software engineer Eric Kuehne, a 1995 graduate of LSMSA; Google, where they met senior software engineer Robert Tsai, of Class of 1992; Twitch, where they met Chief Operating Officer Kevin Lin, a 2000 graduate; and Twitter, where they met Chris Coco, staff software engineer and 1994 alumnus. The group also spent three hours with Coco and his team and were treated to lunch in Twitter’s cafeteria.

“Everyone also went crazy when Kevin took us on a tour of their Zelda-themed conference room,” Peters said. “We were inspired listening to some of his engineers talk about their journeys leading up to Twitch.”

According to Peters, Lin also reserved a conference room where he gave the students tips on skills to gain and answered all of their questions.

The tech tour ended with a visit to Cory Kidd, CEO and founder of Catalia Health and 1995 graduate. Kidd gave the group insight on startup companies and his work with robots.

“We came out of the entire tour in awe and completely inspired by our alums and their creative genius,” Peters added.

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