Board of Directors

John TaylorBoard Chair

LG Electronics USA

John Taylor is the current Chair of the Board and the long-time ATSC Communications Chairman, returning to the ATSC Board of Directors for 2023-24 after previously serving two board terms in the 2010s. As Senior Vice President for LG Electronics USA, he is the most senior U.S. government affairs, public relations and industry relations executive for LG and its U.S. R&D subsidiary Zenith. Among various digital television activities, Taylor co-founded and was a driving force behind the Digital TV Transition Coalition in the 2000s and was Public Affairs Chairman of the Digital HDTV Grand Alliance in the 1990s. He is a founding member of the Steering Committee and current Chairman of the AWARN Alliance and he serves on boards of trustees of The Media Institute and the Library of American Broadcasting Foundation. Taylor is the longest-serving member and past two-time chairman of the Video Division of the Consumer Technology Association, where he also previously chaired the CTA Communications Committee, Video Promotion Committee, 4K UHD Working Group and HDTV Promotion Committee.

Brian MarkwalterVice Chair

CTA

Brian Markwalter is Senior Vice President of Research and Standards for the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). Essentially the chief technology officer for the consumer electronics industry, Markwalter oversees CTA’s ANSI-accredited standards development operations and extensive market research activities. He is a licensed professional engineer and holds seven U.S. patents. Markwalter’s industry leadership is reflected through his positions on the IEEE Consumer Electronics Society Board of Governors, the FCC’s Technological Advisory Council and Video Accessibility Advisory Committee, the U.S. Commerce Department’s NIST Smart Grid Interoperability Panel Governing Board, and the ATSC Board of Directors. He earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in electrical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Lynn ClaudyVice Chair

NAB

Lynn Claudy is Senior Vice President of Technology for the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), the trade association for commercial radio and television broadcast stations. He joined NAB in 1988 as a staff engineer and held positions of Director of Advanced Engineering & Technology and Vice President before assuming his present position in 1995. He earned his BA degree from Oberlin College, BSEE from Washington University in St. Louis and MSEE degree from the Illinois Institute of Technology. He is a member of AES, AFCCE, IEEE, SBE, a SMPTE Fellow and serves on the FCC Technological Advisory Council. He received the IEEE’s 2016 Jules Cohen Outstanding Engineering Achievement Award. He served as ATSC Board Chair from 2019 to 2021.

Richard Friedel

Broadcast.Advocate

Recently retired from Fox Corporation, Richard Friedel started a consultancy named Broadcast.Advocate.

During his 26-year career at Fox, Friedel held positions as EVP of Engineering at Fox Television Stations and EVP Technology & Broadcast Strategy for 21st Century Fox where he drove the company’s ATSC 3.0 efforts.

As EVP & General Manager of Fox’s Network Engineering & Operations group, Friedel led technology strategy and was responsible for day-to-day television operations including the Fox Network Center in Los Angeles and the Houston Technical Operations Center, home of Fox Sports’ regional networks. Before joining Fox, Friedel held various leadership and engineering positions at Capital Cities/ABC, NBC News and local television and radio stations.

In addition to being a Director of ATSC, Friedel serves as President of the Video Services Forum. He is also a Fellow of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), a life member of the Audio Engineering Society and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and a member of the Society of Broadcast Engineers (SBE).

Friedel was honored by the National Association of Broadcasters with the 2015 NAB Engineering Achievement Award, bestowed to individuals nominated by their peers for significant contributions to advancing the state of the art in broadcast engineering. In 2018, he received an Emmy for lifetime achievement from the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. In 2022, Friedel was recognized with the International Achievement Award from the North American Broadcasters Association.

Ed Czarnecki, PH.D.

Digital Alert Systems

Fred Engel

Fred Engel Technology Consulting

Fred Engel, CPBE, ATSC3, is a widely respected leader in the broadcast media industry. He has been recognized for work in developing creative broadcast applications for ATSC 3.0/NEXTGEN TV including Public Safety Communications efforts that won the 2017 National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Pilot Innovation Grant Competition, best television paper at the 2022 NAB BEIT Conference, Best Paper at the 2022 IEEE BTS BMSB Conference and the NAB 2023 Technology Innovation Award. In 2020, Engel was elected to the ATSC Board of Directors and was recently re-elected for a second term.

Engel has held senior technology leadership roles at WTTW/Chicago (28 years), a Systems Integration firm in Chicago (3 years), Kentucky Educational Television (6 years), and PBS North Carolina (8 years). He retired from PBS North Carolina in August of 2024 and began his consulting business, Fred Engel Technology Consulting, LLC.

Engel has been a speaker at the PBS TechCon, PBS Annual Meetings, America’s Public Television Stations Summit, NAB Conventions and many public safety communication conferences. He was the Raleigh/Durham SBE Chapter 93 Chair and holds CPBE and ATSC3 Specialist certifications. He had a six-year tenure on PBS ETAC and has been an active participant with AWARN and NVISA. He was the Television Chair of the North Carolina State Emergency Coordination Committee. In 2023, he became the PBS Station Representative on the NAB’s Television Engineering Committee and served on the FCC/NAB “Future of Television” Initiative.

YIYAN WU, PH.D.

IEEE

Dr. Yiyan Wu is a Principal Research Scientist with the Communications Research Centre Canada.  His research interests include broadband multimedia communications, digital broadcasting, and communication systems engineering. Dr. Wu is a Fellow of the IEEE and a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Broadcasting. He has been appointed as a Member of the Order of Canada (June 2018).

Rikin Thakker, Ph.D.

NCTA

Rikin Thakker, Ph.D., is the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Senior Vice President of Technology at NCTA – The Internet & Television Association. He leads NCTA’s technology efforts and the industry’s interest in techno-policy, standards, and guidelines in such areas as broadband Internet performance, cybersecurity, video services, energy, artificial intelligence (AI) and wireless spectrum. Dr. Thakker is NCTA’s technical liaison with Cable Television Laboratories (CableLabs), the industry’s research and development consortium and with the Society of Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE), the industry’s standards setting body.

Prior to joining NCTA, Dr. Thakker was serving as CTO at the Wireless Infrastructure Association (WIA). He has served on various governmental committees including the Technological Advisory Council (TAC) at the FCC. Dr. Thakker also serves on the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee (CSMAC), and is an active participant in the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) and 6G working groups. Additionally, he has been an adjunct faculty member at the University of Maryland, College Park since 2009.

Dr. Thakker received his Ph.D. in Systems Engineering from George Washington University, Master of Science in Telecommunications from the University of Maryland, College Park, and undergraduate degree in Electronics and Communications Engineering from Gujarat University. He also earned a certificate in Executive Education in Cybersecurity from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)’s Sloan School of Management.

Ling Ling Sun

Nebraska Public Media

Ling Ling Sun is the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Nebraska Public Media, a state network of TV, radio, and digital platforms. She oversees technology services operations and the organization’s technology transformation. Her leadership has resulted in a 20% increase in the network’s channel capacity, an improvement of over 20% in energy efficiency, and the implementation of a converged statewide media network management and control system. Her recent accomplishments include the deployment of an AI-powered English and Spanish closed captioning system for state legislative proceedings and launching the first free Broadcast-Enabled Streaming TV (BEST) channel in Omaha, Nebraska, through a partnership with Sinclair Broadcast Group and America’s Public Television Stations (APTS).

Before joining Nebraska Public Media, Sun served as TV Chief Engineer for WOSU Public Media. There she played a pivotal role in the analog-to-digital TV transition and the implementation of WOSU@COSI – a state-of-the-art production facility featuring an interactive public interface.

Sun chaired PBS’ Engineering Technology Advisory Committee (ETAC) from 2013 to 2018 and the NAB BEIT Conference Program Committee in 2023 and 2024. She is a member of the NAB TV Technology Committee and also serves on the Nebraska Information Technology Commission Technical Panel.

Sun holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the Communication University of China. Her accolades include the 2019 National Technology Leadership Award by Broadcasting & Cable. She has been recognized among the “Top 50 Women Leaders in Technology” (2022), “Top 50 Women Leaders in Media” (2023), and “Top 50 Chief Technology Officers” (2024) by Women We Admire. Additionally, she is listed in Marquis Who’s Who for 2023.

Anne Schelle

Pearl TV

Anne Schelle is Managing Director of Pearl TV, a business organization of 8 broadcast TV companies investing in forward-looking opportunities including NEXTGEN TV (ATSC 3.0). Schelle has more than two decades of wireless and media industry experience.

Schelle was Founder and President of APS Connext LLC, providing senior-level advisory to some of the nation’s largest public media companies. She previously served as Senior Advisor to the NAB and as Executive Director of the Open Mobile Video Coalition. Schelle was also a founding management team member for several companies including the nation’s first commercial digital cellular network American Personal Communications, dba Sprint Spectrum, and xDSL Networks. She is a past venture partner and CEO of Acta Wireless.

Schelle serves currently as Board Chair of the ATSC 3.0 Security Alliance (A3SA), Board member of WYPR, Maryland’s Public Radio Station, and the Wise Giving Alliance, Give.org. She formerly served on the ATSC Board, as Vice Chairwoman of the Mobile Marketing Association’s North American Board, founding Chair of its Video Committee, and as a founding member of the Advisory Board of the Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering for Professionals.

PAUL HEARTY, PH.D.

Samsung

Paul Hearty has been involved in the development and standardization of advanced television systems since the early 1980s. He has worked with the International Telecommunication Union, in the FCC Advisory Committee on Advanced Television Service (ACATS), and in standards development organizations, such as ATSC, CTA, SCTE, and SMPTE.

Dr. Hearty currently is Chief Standards Strategist in Samsung Research America’s Video Solutions, where he leads standardization activities in ATSC and in other standards development organizations; his activities comprise ATSC 3.0 and other technologies.

Previously, he was Vice President of Technical Standards at Sony, where he spearheaded Sony and partner efforts in ATSC 3.0. He began his professional career at the Communications Research Centre, Government of Canada. He founded the Advanced Television Evaluation Laboratory, which carried out tests on behalf of ACATS, leading to ATSC 1.0. Later, as a Vice President at General Instrument/Motorola, he led in the deployment of commercial and direct-to-home satellite broadcast technologies, as well as digital compression technology for satellite and cable. Dr. Hearty served previously on the ATSC Board and on its predecessor, the ATSC Executive Committee. He has served on the Board and Executive Committee of SMPTE.

Dr. Hearty holds a Ph.D from Queen’s University, Canada. He has received one Technical Emmy and has been recognized for his contributions to four others. He is an Inaugural Inductee to the Consumer Electronics Association’s Academy of DTV Pioneers, and he is a Fellow of SMPTE.

Kerry Oslund

The E.W. Scripps Company

Kerry Oslund is Vice President of Strategy and Business Development for The E.W. Scripps Company where he is responsible for advancing the company’s ATSC 3.0 strategy and other business development efforts. Prior to his post at Scripps, Oslund was Vice President of Strategy and Business Development at Tribune where he helped the company align business strategies with emerging ATSC 3.0 television standards. He also spearheaded major NextGen television advertising initiatives including dynamic ad insertion and real-time TV analytics and helped Tribune launch a successful podcast network. From 2009-2016, Oslund worked for Schurz Communications as Senior Vice President of Publishing and Digital, where he oversaw daily operations of TV, radio, print and cable businesses and led M&A strategy. Oslund has held industry leadership roles at Gannett Broadcasting (now TEGNA), Lee Enterprises, Walt Disney Company, KCAL-TV and USA Today. A six-time regional Emmy winner, he is also a Director for Pearl TV and a Founder of the TV Interface Practices (TIP) Initiative.

Mark Aitken

Sinclair

Mark Aitken is the Vice President of Advanced Technology at Sinclair. He has been involved in the broadcast industry’s migration to advanced services since 1987 from his participation in the FCC’s Advisory Committee on Advanced Television Services to his current involvement with the ATSC. He was the primary architect in the formation of ONE Media and a driver of key ATSC 3.0 breakthrough technologies.

Prior to his involvement with Sinclair, Aitken worked with COMARK Communications where he held several positions including Manager of the Systems Engineering, RF Engineering and Sales Engineering groups, as well as Director of Marketing and Sales Support which included digital television strategic planning.

Aitken is a member of the NAB TV Technology Committee, as well as AFCCE, IEEE and SMPTE. He is the author of many papers dealing with innovative RF product development and advanced digital broadcast systems design-implementation strategies and holds patents for various RF devices and NextGen systems. He is a recipient of the 2008 Broadcasting and Cable Technology Leadership Award, the 2013 recipient of the ATSC “Bernard Lechner Outstanding Contributor Award,” the 2018 NAB Engineering Achievement Award for his leadership in advancing the adoption of the NextGen standard and the 2018 TV Technology Innovator Award.

Zandra Clarke

SMPTE

Zandra Clarke is a seasoned broadcast professional at Warner Bros.Discovery responsible for coordinating NBA on TNT transmission logistics for all broadcasts, All-Star Weekend, Play-off and Conference Finals. She provides world-class customer support that reinforces Warner Bros.Discovery’s brand of excellence and flexibility. She has coordinated the transmission of various live sports and entertainment broadcasts.

Clarke has served as Chair, Secretary, and Treasurer for both the Society of Motion Pictures and Television Engineers and the Society of Satellites Professionals International of Atlanta.

Adam Goldberg

Sony Electronics

Adam Goldberg has three decades of experience in various facets of digital television and has been an active participant in ATSC since 1996. He currently chairs S36 (security) and TG3-12 (portrait mode video) and is the Vice Chair of S33 (management and protocols). He has chaired every ATSC technical group focused on security (yielding ATSC A/70 and A/360 standards families).

Goldberg has been involved in various digital television and digital telecommunications activities including the over-the-air digital transition, cable television and home entertainment in general for more than three decades. Goldberg has been deeply involved with many aspects of digital television, including receivers, receiver silicon and broadcast equipment, and has held engineering, project management, strategic planning, standards and government relations roles for software vendors, decoder and silicon manufacturers, network and head-end vendors and consumer electronics companies and has spoken world-wide on digital television issues.