Elias James Corey (born July 12, 1928) 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 entered MIT in 1945. At MIT, he earned both a bachelor's degree in 1948 and a Ph.D. at age 22 in 1951. Both degrees were in chemistry. Immediately thereafter, he joined the faculty of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he became a Full Professor of Chemistry in 1956 at the age of 27.
In 1959, he moved to Harvard University, where he is currently an emeritus professor of organic chemistry with an active Corey Group research program.
He and his wife, Claire, were married in 1961. They have three children, David, John, and Susan and two granddaughters, Sara and Kate Corey. Currently, he and his wife, Claire, live in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
In 1988, he was awarded the National Medal of Science. He was awarded the American Chemical Society's greatest honor, the Priestley Medal, in 2004.
Awards:
E.J. Corey has received more than 40 major awards including the Linus Pauling Award (1973), Franklin Medal (1978), Wolf Prize in Chemistry (1986), National Medal of Science (1988), Japan Prize (1989), Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1990), Roger Adams Award (1993), and the Priestley Medal (2004). As of 2008, he has been awarded 19 honorary degrees from universities around the world including Oxford University (UK), Cambridge University (UK), and National Chung Cheng University.