Stephen James Benkovic is an American chemist. Stephen J. Benkovic was born April 20, 1938 in Orange, New Jersey, United States, NJ. He received his B.S. degree in Chemistry and A.B. degree in English Literature from Lehigh University, and his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Cornell University. He is Evan Pugh Professor and Eberly Chair in Chemistry at Penn State University. His research has focused on mechanistic enzymology and the discovery of enzyme inhibitors. He was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1985. 

Benkovic’s recent work has focused on the assembly and kinetic characteristics of the enzymatic machinery that is responsible for DNA replication and DNA repair in T4 phage and human cells; the importance of coupling of proximal and distal residues in the catalytic cycle of the dihydrofolate reductase enzyme that serves as a paradigm for describing enzymatic catalysis in terms of a series of orchestrated protein conformations to reach the transition state; and the assembly, disassembly, and function of an intracellular complex, the purinosome, that consists of the enzymes involved in de novo purine biosynthesis.