Roland V. Shack, professor emeritus of optical sciences at the University of Arizona Optical Sciences Center, has received 2004 Gold Medal from The International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE) for his contributions to image formation, aberration theory, optical testing, light scattering, microscopy and astronomical optics, for his teaching and mentoring of optics students and for his inventions, including the Shack-Hartmann sensor and the Shack cube interferometer. Shack began his career in optics in the Optical Instruments Section of the National Bureau of Standards in 1949, where he became adept in optical testing. While there, he also helped pioneer the development of the optical transfer function. In 1957, he moved on to the Perkin-Elmer Corp., where he worked in optical testing and system analysis until he joined Aden Meinel and Robert Noble to form the Optical Sciences Center at the University of Arizona in 1964. Since then he has continually impacted the optics community with innovations in diffraction and light scattering, vector aberration theory for non-axially symmetric systems and partial coherence in image formation and image quality. His contributions of the Shack-Hartmann sensor and the Shack cube interferometer alone have had a huge impact on optical testing, SPIE said.   . . .   Willem Roelandts, president, CEO and chairman of chip maker Xilinx Inc., has been named a board member at Applied Materials Inc. Prior to joining Xilinx in 1996, Roelandts was an executive at Hewlett-Packard Co. He is also on the board of the Semiconductor Industry Association and the Technology Network and is chairman of the Fabless Semiconductor Association.