Process equipment developer Veeco Instruments Inc. has appointed Kathleen Bayless to its board of directors and audit committee. Bayless served as senior vice president and chief financial officer of human interface technology provider Synaptics from 2009 to her retirement in 2015. Before Synaptics, she spent 13 years at Komag Inc., a supplier of thin-film disks for the hard disk drive industry, as the executive vice president, secretary and chief financial officer. Prior to Komag, Bayless spent 15 years at professional services firm Ernst & Young. She holds a bachelor’s degree from California State University Fresno and is a certified public accountant. Veeco’s process equipment solutions enable the manufacture of LEDs, power electronics, hard drives, microelectromechanical systems and wireless chips.