NEW YORK--Nov. 8, 2004-- Beng Ong, a Xerox Corporation research fellow and manager of advanced materials and organic electronics, has been named by Scientific American magazine to its prestigious annual list recognizing outstanding acts of leadership in science and technology from the past year - the 2004 Scientific American 50. Ong's aspiration is to replace costly silicon technology with inexpensive printed plastic circuits for creating a new generation of ubiquitous flexible electronics. Potential applications include flexible large-screen TVs, e-paper, paper-thin PC monitors, wearable electronics, sensors, smart labels and RFID tags. He and his team are being honored for their leadership and milestone contributions in plastic electronics research. Announced today, the Scientific American 50 appears in the magazine's December issue, arriving on newsstands Nov. 23. Selected by the magazine's board of editors with the help of outside advisors, the Scientific American 50 spotlights a Research Leader of the Year, a Business Leader of the Year and a Policy Leader of the Year. The list also recognizes research, business and policy leaders in various technological categories including agriculture, chemicals and materials, communications, computing, energy, environment, medical treatments and more. Ong has been named "Business Leader" in chemicals and materials for his work over the past year in advancing printed electronics. Ong leads a research team at the Xerox Research Centre of Canada in Mississauga, Ontario, in developing high-performance, nanostructured materials that enable printing flexible transistor circuits at low temperatures and in open air - generally considered a requirement for low-cost manufacturing. Most materials used today for printed electronics require expensive high-temperature processing, often in dry environments in the absence of oxygen. "Beng Ong is an exceptionally visionary scientist. His deep understanding of electronic properties of polymers and his creative application of those insights is behind these breakthrough developments," said Herve Gallaire, Xerox chief technology officer and president, Xerox Innovation Group. "The honor is well deserved." Ong is among Xerox's most prolific researchers, with 120 U.S. patents and numerous foreign equivalent patents to his credit. Born in Malaysia and receiving undergraduate education in Singapore, Ong holds a doctorate in chemistry from McGill University and worked as a research fellow at Harvard University before joining Xerox. Scientific American 50 winners will be honored Nov. 16 at a celebration at the New York Academy of Sciences in New York City.