Los Angeles Times Creative Technology Interns Collaborate Virtually
The Los Angeles Times welcomed six students and recent graduates to its creative technology internship program this week.
Under the guidance of Max Lu, director of academic partnerships and research, the students, who have backgrounds in engineering, design, business and journalism, are joining forces with the digital and product teams at The Times to solve problems and develop new product ideas.
The Times launched the creative technology internship program last year as a way to strengthen the newspaper’s relationship with technology-minded students while tapping into their creativity.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the interns will be working remotely, with members on both coasts. Lu is viewing the situation as an opportunity as much as it is a challenge.
“It forces us to live in a plausible future scenario in which remote-working becomes a norm,” Lu said. “The problems that we face, such as cross time zone collaboration and lack of in-person meeting opportunities, will help us to understand the future need of our readers and allow us to develop better services for them.”
The team includes students and recent graduates from Stanford University, Columbia University, University of Southern California and University of California, Irvine. The group will be working on a number of projects, spanning from innovations that would help readers to digest news, to productivity tools to help the newsroom adapt to emerging platforms like smart speakers.
The 2020 creative technology intern class:
- Aaron Brezel, Columbia University
- Bhaskar Ghosh, Columbia University
- Selena Jiang, University of California, Irvine
- Jianna So, Stanford University
- Ruby Yuan, University of Southern California
- Grace Zhou, Stanford University
Los Angeles Times internship programs, including the creative technology cohort, are listed at latimes.com/internships.
