Elias James "E.J." Corey is an American organic chemist. In 1990, he won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his development of the theory and methodology of organic synthesis", specifically retrosynthetic analysis. He was born on July 12, 1928 in Methuen, Massachusetts, United States. He entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) a few weeks later with an interest in electrical engineering. He soon became enamoured with chemistry, though, because of its intellectual richness and its relevance to human health. He focused on syntheticorganic chemistry after taking a course on the subject from Arthur Cope in 1947. Corey obtained an undergraduate degree in 1948 and continued at MIT as a graduate student working on synthetic penicillins in the research group of John Sheehan. Corey completed his doctoral studies in late 1950, in time to accept a position the following January as an instructor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. There he came under the influence of the noted organic chemists Roger Adams and Carl Marvel. He receiced the National Medal Of Science in 1988.