Al Kovalick is a Principal Member and Founder of Media Systems Consulting. Previously, he was a Corporate Fellow at Avid, CTO of Pinnacle Systems and Video Systems Architect at HP. He is an active speaker, educator and has penned the book Video Systems in an IT Environment – The Basics of Networked Media and File-Based Workflows (2009). Al has an MSEE degree from the University of California at Berkeley, holds 18 US and foreign patents and has authored more than 50 papers. He is a SMPTE Fellow and recipient of the David Sarnoff Gold Medal.

Arjun Ramamurthy is currently the VP of Technology at Twentieth Century Fox. In that capacity, he is responsible for outlining and defining the next generation workflow and technology utilized for Feature and TV post production, Digital Content Processing and downstream Distribution and Digital Archiving.

Arjun has over 25 years of experience in the Post-Production industry, and was previously with Deluxe’s EFILM facility, and prior to that with Warner Bros’. Technical Operations and Feature Animation.

He is an active member of SMPTE, HPA, IEEE, and has contributed on a variety of technical committees, such as the DCI effort, AMPAS’ ACES, and is currently the Ad-Hoc Chair of the CPL/OPL group of the 35PM-50 working group on the Interoperable Master Format and the Chair of the Mastering Display Color Volume Metadata Drafting Group within SMPTE. He holds several patents in the area of Digital Image processing and Media Post Production.

Bill Hogan is a consultant for the television and motion picture industries. He worked for the ABC-TV network and Technicolor before starting Ruxton, a pioneer in the field and post production industry. Ruxton in a one-year period pioneered the use of ENG cameras for field production, purchased the first video Steadicam and installed the first Cintel flying-spot telecine in Hollywood. For use with these ENG cameras Ruxton utilized the first one-inch portable VTRs for field production for shows such as John Denver specials, Barbara Walters and David Frost interview shows and many entertainment shows worldwide. This first in Hollywood flying-spot scanner transferred the first color film negative in the U.S.

Hogan started Sprocket Digital to product telecine and other audio/video products worked for Panasonic as a product engineering manager. He has participated on SMPTE engineering committees, working on analog and digital video standards, high-definition and digital cinema.

Hogan is a member and past president of the Audio Engineering Society (AES) Los Angeles Section and is twice past president of the Society of Television Engineers. He is a recipient of a Motion Picture Academy Technical award and the Television Academy Engineering Emmy award.

Bill Redmann is a creative technologist and inventor, designing and developing social, interactive, and new media technologies for Technicolor, where he is a Fellow and Senior Software Engineer.

His experience ranges from virtual reality, telepresence systems, entertainment simulators, theme park attractions, holography, other 3D techniques, seminal wearables technology, and puzzle design for the alternate reality games The Beast and I Love Bees. In the other 80 hours of the week, he dabbles in electric vehicle infrastructure and driver safety systems. Bill has been granted about 34 patents, is an active member of SMPTE, and has a Masters in Engineering from UCLA.

David Long joined the faculty of the School of Film and Animation in 2007, where he is currently Program Chair and Associate Professor for the BS Motion Picture Science program. His research interests at RIT include engineering multispectral video capture and display systems and studying variability in human color vision for artistic applications.

Prior to RIT, Long worked as a Development Engineer and Imaging Scientist with Eastman Kodak’s Entertainment Imaging Division. At Kodak, his primary responsibilities included new product development and image science and systems integration for the motion picture group, focusing on film and digital imaging products. His work has earned him numerous patents and a 2008 Scientific & Technical Academy Award for contributions made to the design of Vision2 films.

Outside of RIT, Long is an officer of the Rochester Section of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) and is chair of the Board of the Little Theatre in Rochester.

Long has a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and an MS in Materials Science from the University of Rochester.

Harvey Arnold is V.P. of Engineering for Sinclair Broadcast Group, one of the largest television broadcast owners/operators in the US. He is responsible for engineering activities supporting approximately 170 television stations associated with Sinclair's operations.

Before Sinclair he spent 17 years with North Carolina Public Television, managing and expanding the engineering and transmission activities of one of the largest state-wide Public Television networks in the country. Harvey has served as an engineering consultant for PBS and its member stations. He was an active member of the FCC Advisory Committee for Advanced Television Service (ACATS) to develop the ATSC standard and to implement over-the-air digital television in the United States.

Harvey holds a BS in Communications from the University of Wisconsin, and is active in many broadcast-related technical organizations such as ATSC, Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), Society of Broadcast Engineers (SBE) and The Association of Federal Communications Consulting Engineers (AFCCE). Harvey is the recipient of the Broadcasting & Cable Technical Leadership Award. He is a member of the SMPTE Board of Editors and a SMPTE Fellow.

Jennifer Zeidan always had a video camera in her hand, so it only made sense to turn her passion into her career.  Jennifer started in the industry as an intern at Cisco TV in 2008 where she learned the excitement of live television and master control.  She transitioned to production engineer after graduating from Santa Clara University and began technical managing large-scale broadcasts for Cisco.  Five years later, she found herself in a real-life "The Newsroom" - glass rooms and all - at Al Jazeera Media Network.  As a broadcast engineer she helped launch Al Jazeera America and AJ+, Al Jazeera's newest digital-only, millennial-geared network.   After moving from corporate television to news, the time came to step into the world of film.  Jennifer is now a media systems engineer at Lucasfilm's Industrial Light and Magic and looks forward to her continued growth with the greater Disney family.

Jim DeFilippis
Conference Co-Chair

Jim DeFilippis has worked in the broadcast/media space for 30-plus years and has been part of major broadcast/media companies ( FOX, ABC) and (6) Olympic Broadcasts. Jim has managed large technical projects, developing new technologies into working systems for television production and distribution. Jim has established a consulting practice focusing on media file work flow, sports broadcast technology, and mobile television. Jim has a MS in Electrical Engineering, is a Fellow of the SMPTE, a member of AES, SCTE and IEEE. In 2012 he received the David Sarnoff Medal from SMPTE for his innovative work in television technologies. Jim resides in Los Angeles with his lovely wife, Maggie and two children, Jake and Juliana. He likes to bike, sail and work in the garden.

John Ferder is Director of Studio and Post-Production Engineering for the CBS Television Network in New York, where he has worked since September 1995. Together with his engineering group, he is responsible for the design, construction and support of all production and post-production facilities in the CBS Broadcast Center including the renovations for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, HD upgrades for the NFL Today, The Late Show with David Letterman, 60 Minutes, 48 Hours, and the 2008 construction of the new control room for the CBS Evening News and the new studio for CBS This Morning. He has worked extensively with various manufacturers in the development of fiber optic composite camera cables and connectors, and of the HD-BNC connector within the Broadcast Center Infrastructure.

John received his BS in Electrical Engineering from Marquette University and, prior to CBS, worked for Philips/BTS, Roscor, Chyron, WOR-TV, the ABC Television Network, WLS-TV and WISN-TV.

John was elected a Fellow of the Society in 2012. Currently a Governor for the New York Region, John has also served as a Manager for the Chicago Section, and as a Manager, Chair, and Past Chair of the New York Section. He is a member of IEEE, its Consumer Electronics and Circuits and Systems Societies, and recently served as Chair of the New York Chapter of the Broadcast Technology Society .

John Maizels combines life as a media verstilist and technologist in television and radio, with that of presenter, technical writer, sound editor, author and studio/OB operational crew. When not completely confused by this life, he teaches multicamera studio TV at college level and does voice overs. He first tasted compressed digital video as a pioneer of distance education and business television, and developed virtual routing control systems for broadcast studio use. John is highly active in development of education and training for technologists, serves on the SMPTE Board as Governor for Asia/Australia Region, and is a Fellow of the SMPTE.

After managing spaceflight hardware development for NASA, Kellie McKeown transitioned to Television Broadcast where she successfully managed software and hardware development projects and organizations for Sony, Sportvision, Digidesign audio division of Avid, StorerTV and as Director of Engineering for TiVo.  Kellie began McKeown Consulting in 1998.  Her forte is guiding software vendors to evolve their engineering organizations, procedures and processes to successfully deliver to large broadcast clients, as well as win-win client relationship management.  Details at www.mckeownconsulting.tv and www.mckeownconsulting.com.

Kevin Stec has more than 30 years of experience in professional and consumer video development. He currently is a Consultant to Dynamic Digital Depth DDD looking into applications of depth information. He previously held the position of Sr. Director of Image Technology Research at Dolby Laboratories overseeing development of image-processing technology for digital cinema, broadcast, and consumer entertainment applications. He spent the majority of his career at Panasonic, working in a variety of R&D and product development groups; his last position for the company was as General Manager of Panasonic AVC American Laboratories. Mr. Stec joined DemoGraFX in 2001 as the Vice President of Engineering; in 2003, DemoGraFX was acquired by Dolby Laboratories.

Mr. Stec has worked on the development of HDTV since 1981 and was awarded a Technology and Engineering Emmy® Award in 2000 for advancements in video format conversion. He holds a number of patents in the area of digital video signal processing. Mr. Stec has participated on numerous SMPTE technical committees relating to video recording and digital video technology and currently is a member of the Education Strategy Committee. He has been a session chair at the AMI Conference, a Hollywood Chapter Manager and is a SMPTE Fellow and on the SMPTE Board of Editors. He is also a Gold Member of the Hollywood Post Alliance. Mr. Stec received a BSEE from the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1980 and completed the Stanford/AEA executive management program in 2004.

Matthew Goldman is Senior Vice President Technology, TV & Media, at Ericsson, where he is focused on video compression related products and solutions. He has been actively involved in the development of DTV systems since 1992. He was a prominent participant in the Moving Picture Experts Group where he helped create the MPEG-2 Systems standard, and he continues to be influential in other industry organizations including the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, the Advanced Television Systems Committee, the Digital Video Broadcasting project and the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers. Four of his projects have been later recognized by Technology & Engineering Emmy® Awards. Mr. Goldman received bachelor (high honors) and master of sciences degrees in electrical engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. He holds six patents related to digital video transport. A SMPTE Fellow, he is also a senior member of the IEEE and an inductee of the Academy of Digital Television Pioneers. Mr. Goldman is currently serving as Executive Vice President on the SMPTE Board of Governors.

Patrick Griffis is Executive Director, Technology Strategy in the Office of the CTO at Dolby Laboratories where he is charged with helping define future technology strategy for the company. Prior to Dolby, he spent 10 years at Microsoft leading digital media standards strategy on a global basis including adoption of the Digital Living Network Alliance as a baseline media sharing standard in Windows 7 and standardization of Windows Media Video technology as an international standard in SMPTE. Prior to Microsoft, Pat spent 15 years at Panasonic in senior management positions including VP/ Strategic Product Development at Panasonic Broadcast where he helped launch DVCPRO and drive HDTV strategy for the USA. Pat started his career at RCA earning 8 patents in TV product design. He serves as SMPTE Vice President of Education, a member of the SMPTE executive committee and is a SMPTE Fellow. He is past member of the board of the ATSC and past Vice Chairman of the board of the Digital Living Network Alliance. He is an invited member of the IBC Council, an industry executive advisory group as well as the Academy of Digital TV Pioneers. He served two terms as President of the IEEE Consumer Electronics Society. Pat holds a BSEE from Tufts University and an MSEE from Purdue University.

Paul Chapman
Conference Co-Chair

Paul Chapman has worked in the Video and Post Production industry in Los Angeles for over 25 years, having come from the UK after a career in Software Engineering. His degree is in Computers & Cybernetics from the University of Kent, Canterbury. In 1996 he joined FotoKem, holding various engineering leadership positions. During the first part of his career at FotoKem he led the team that designed the infrastructure, implemented, and then moved into a new 60,000 square foot purpose built video Building. At FotoKem he currently holds the position of Senior Vice President of Technology, in this position he is responsible for evaluating, recommending and implementing all aspects of digital technology company wide. He is immediate past chair of SMPTE Hollywood section, having served for two years, and currently is SMPTE Hollywood regional Governor.

Pete Ludé is a prominent engineering executive in cinema and digital media, with extensive experience in deployment of systems worldwide. Ludé serves as Senior VP for Innovation at RealD, where he is helping to re-invent motion imaging. Previously, he was Senior Vice President of Sony's Silicon Valley R&D labs, where his work included workflow software for digital cinema production, stereoscopic imaging and 4K laser projectors for digital cinema. He is past president of SMPTE, and a SMPTE fellow. Pete is also was founding Chairman of the Laser Illuminated Projector Association, and is a frequent speaker on the future of cinema technology, Ultra HD, stereoscopic 3D and laser displays.

Peter H. Putman, CTS®, ISF, is President of ROAM Consulting LLC in Doylestown, PA. He provides consulting, training and product testing/development services to manufacturers of electronic displays, interfaces and digital TV and video equipment. In addition, he edits and publishes HDTVexpert.com, a website focused on digital TV, HDTV and display technologies.

Putman has written extensively on HDTV and display technology for numerous consumer and trade magazines, and is a frequent speaker at major trade shows and technical conferences, including the Consumer Electronics Show, the National Association of Broadcasters trade show, the Hollywood Post Alliance Technology Retreat, and the U.S.-based InfoComm International trade show. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications from Seton Hall University and a Master of Science degree in Television and Film from Syracuse University.

Putman is a member of InfoComm University™ faculty, as well as a member of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) and Society for Information Display (SID). He also holds certifications from InfoComm (CTS) and the Imaging Science Foundation (ISF), and has held Amateur Radio Extra Class license KT2B since 1982. He received the 2008 Educator of the Year Award at InfoComm 2008.

Sara Kudrle is currently the Product Marketing Manager for Monitoring and Control within the Strategic Marketing group of Grass Valley, a Belden Brand. Sara received her degree in Computer Science with a Minor in Mathematics from California State University Chico. Sara's 15 plus years as an engineer in the Broadcast industry started at Tektronix where she worked in VideoTele.com. From there, she joined Continental Electronics, working within the TV Transmitter group where she was responsible for developing exciter control software. From there she joined Miranda/NVISION and was responsible for several projects within the Router Control group. Sara has authored several papers for NAB, PBS and SMPTE conferences and has been published in the SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal and Broadcast Engineering. Sara's paper on "Fingerprinting for Solving A/V Synchronization Issues within Broadcast Environments,” received the 2012 Journal Award for best article. Sara is active within SMPTE serving on several committees and within the standards community. Sara is a current SMPTE Secretary/Treasurer and former Section Manager for Sacramento as well as the Western Region Governor for SMPTE. She is also a member of IEEE.

Siegfried Foessel received his Diploma degree in Electronic Engineering in 1989. He started his professional career as a scientist at the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS in Erlangen and was project manager for projects in process automation, image processing systems and digital camera design. In 2000 he received his Ph.D. degree on image distribution technologies for multiprocessor systems. Since 2001 he focusses on projects for digital cinema and media technologies. He was responsible for projects like ARRI D21, DCI certification test plan or JPEG2000 standardisation for Digital Cinema. Siegfried is member of various standardisation bodies and organisations like SMPTE. In ISO SC29/JPEG he is chairing the systems group. Within the EDCF he is member of the technical board. Since 2010 Siegfried is head of the department Moving Picture Technologies, spokesman of the Fraunhofer alliance Digital Cinema and Chairman of the Board, FKTG, the German equivalent to SMPTE.

Steve Wong is the Director of Business Development Media & Entertainment Group for Hewlett Packard Enterprise and is serial start-up media and entertainment internet infrastructure person who enjoys putting first-ever disruptive technology in the hands of billions.

Steve was recognized with a 2007 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Engineering Development for the Teranex Video Computer. Steve is a Member of the Interactive Media Peer Group of The National Academy of Television Arts& Sciences (The Emmy Awards). He is an Executive Academy Member of The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (The Webby Awards). In addition, Steve is a Hollywood Section Manager of The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers® (SMPTE®). For fun, Steve writes and produces independent feature films.

Steve also is a visiting lecturer at the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies and a mentor at the USC Incubator (startusc.com), a program for high-potential startups founded by USC students, alumni and faculty/staff.

Steve began his career in broadcasting working for Belo Broadcasting and then moved to ABC Capital Cities (purchased by Disney) as Director of Research and Development. In this role, Steve experimented with broadcasting live news on the internet with Cu-Seeme back in 1995.

During the times of broadcast conversion from Analog to Digital, Steve used his knowledge of broadcasting to advice stations on broadcast equipment while at Leitch technologies (purchased by Harris then purchased by Imagine).

During the times of broadcast and post production conversion from Standard Definition to High Definition, Steve joined a Department of Defense Military technology spin-off start up (Teranex) that used Parallel computing for video conversion and pre-compression processing. In his role, Steve advised a number of broadcasters, postproduction studios, and movie studios on conversion, noise reduction, and 3:2 pull down.

As content moved on-line, Steve moved into video transmission, storage, and distribution joining Level 3. Steve advised client on the best practices for online live broadcast and Video on Demand distribution, storage, and monetization. Steve also helped Siemens successfully spin off a software division focused on Over the Top TV (OTT).

Currently, Steve is the Director of Business Development for the Media & Entertainment Group at Hewlett Packard Enterprise helping Hollywood virtualize and secure the process of production, post production and distribution of movies and episodic programs.

Over the years, Steve has advised a number of start-up companies.

Thomas Edwards is Vice President, Engineering & Development at FOX Network Engineering & Operations, where he works on advanced technology projects such as mobile DTV, 3D, and the FOX network satellite distribution system. Previous to joining FOX in 2007, he was Senior Manager, Interconnection Engineering for the PBS Interconnection Replacement Office, where he was responsible for the engineering planning of the PBS Next Generation Interconnection System (NGIS). He also has had significant experience with streaming media production and delivery at the Internet service provider DIGEX and the IP-over-satellite company Cidera. Edwards has contributed to the Report of the SMPTE Task Force on 3D to the Home and the NAB Engineering Handbook. He holds a Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Maryland, and is a member of IEEE and SMPTE.

Vicki Lau began her career in Singapore at the age of 18 and landed her first Hollywood break working on AMC's hit series, “The Walking Dead” (Season 4) and on movies such as “Guardians of the Galaxy,” “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” and most recently “Alice Through the Looking Glass.” She has taught college-level classes at Mt. Sierra College and students with autism at Exceptional Minds. Lau is a speaker on visual effects and virtual reality in motion pictures. She is versatile, working within both the motion picture and television industry and virtual reality and tech start-ups from the East and West coasts. Lau graduated from the Savannah College of Art & Design with Summa Cum Laude Honors in Visual Effects and an Outstanding Achievement Award and is a selected scholar of the Media Development Authority of Singapore.