The Envelope Please… 2016 Lechner Award Goes to Madeleine Noland

Posted on June 1, 2016 in ATSC News

Madeleine Noland received the ATSC’s highest technical honor, the Bernard J. Lechner Outstanding Contributor Award, in recognition of her “extraordinary leadership and contributions to the development of ATSC 3.0.”

Noland, Senior Director of Standards and Technology at LG Electronics, chairs the S34 Specialists Group on ATSC 3.0 Applications and Presentation, the group focused on user experience, including support for video and audio codecs, linear TV services, interactive applications, accessibility including closed captioning, and other features.

“Natural Leader”

“Madeleine is a natural leader with remarkable management skills,” said ATSC President Mark Richer as he and ATSC Board Chairman honored Noland at the 2016 ATSC Broadcast Television Conference.

“She uses these skills to forge agreements on challenging technical issues within the collaborative standards development process. Her outstanding leadership in the development of ATSC 3.0 is a key factor in the rapid advancement of the next-generation broadcast standard,” Richer added.

Noland leads the effort to develop key ATSC 3.0 features, including vetting of emerging standards for Electronic Services Guides, Content Advisories, Emergency Alerting, Personalization and Companion Devices. The same group is also forging compelling optimized video formats, as well as High Dynamic Range and Wide Color Gamut solutions.

What’s more, as Vice Chair of the S31 Specialists Group, Noland has helped to frame the system requirements for ATSC 3.0, coordinating the full implementation of the new standard with the work of other committees. She played an active role in developing usage scenarios that describe the desired attributes of the new standard.

Storied Career

Noland began her career in television systems with Back Channel Media (BCM) in 2004. BCM created Clickable TV, an end-to-end interactive television system for local broadcast stations. It was during her work with BCM that she first started working on ATSC projects. After BCM, Madeleine moved on to Product and Project Manager roles at Telvue Corp., successfully guiding the company to consensus on its product roadmap.

Through her involvement in industry standards work, Noland’s work was noticed by long-time ATSC member LG Electronics, and she joined their ATSC 3.0 team in early 2013. An alumna of the University of Massachusetts, Madeleine is also a talented wind synth and keyboard player in a band called Eccentric Orbit. Noland is credited on three U.S. patents for television technology.

Lechner Award

The Lechner Award is bestowed once a year to an individual representative of the membership whose technical and leadership contributions to the ATSC have been invaluable and exemplary. The title of the award recognizes the first recipient, the late Bernard Lechner, for his outstanding services to the ATSC. The honoree is selected by the ATSC Board of Directors.

Recipients of the ATSC Lechner Award:

2000 – Bernard Lechner, Consultant

2001 – Rich Chernock, Triveni Digital

2002 – Regis Crinon, Microsoft

2003 – Glenn Adams, Extensible Formatting Systems, Inc

2004 – Graham Jones, National Association of Broadcasters

2005 – John Henderson, Hitachi

2006 – Art Allison, National Association of Broadcasters

2007 – Mark Eyer, Sony Electronics

2008 – Michael Dolan, TBT

2009 – Wayne Bretl, LG Electronics/Zenith

2010 – Pat Waddell, Harmonic

2011 – Jim Starzynski, NBC Universal

2012 – S. Merrill Weiss, MWG Group

2013 – Mark Aitken, Sinclair Broadcast Group

2014 – James Kutzner, PBS

2015 – Luke Fay, Sony Electronics

2016 – Madeline Noland, LG Electronics

Posted in ATSC News