At MIT, he earned both the bachelor's degree in 1948 and a Ph.D. in 1951. Immediately, he joined a faculty of University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Inside 1959, he moved to Harvard University, where he is presently an retired prof of organic chemistry.

Major contributions
Reagents
He has developed many fresh synthetic reagents: PCC (pyridinium chlorochromate): widely used for the oxidisation of alcohols to aldehydes. t-Butyldimethylsilyl ether (TBDMS): popular alcohol protecting group.

Methodology
His method for asymmetrical reduction of ketones to chiral secondary alcohols using oxazaborolidine/borane (Corey-Bakshi-Shibata reduction (CBS Reduction) ) has become popular.

Total syntheses
His 1969 total synthesis of several prostaglandins is considered a classic.

Graduate student death

Corey has gained the certain infamy in the field of chemistry for having 1 grad student commit suicide and explicitly blame the adviser (Corey) for doing then. Another suicide likewise occured inside his science laboratory although a student was just at harvard for seven days prior to doing thus & was unrelated to working for Corey.

the postgraduate, Jason Altom, was a Ph.D. student at Harvard University who committed suicide by taking potassium cyanide in 1998, citing in his suicide note "abusive research supervisors" when 1 cause for ingesting his life. Altom was working in one of a virtually all complex natural products & felt tremendous pressure to finish a molecule prior to starting his academic career.

Altom's suicide highlighted a plight of several Ph.D. students within similar situations(?) His instance prompted numbers of universities to insist that Ph.D. students develop an consultative committee additionally to the supervisor, to whom it will turn for trend lines: James Anderson, who became Harvard Chemistry Department Chair, stated that "Jason's death prompted an examination of the role the department should play in graduate students' lives". Andersin went on to promise that students may likewise stand "confidential and seamless access" to psychological counselling services, paid for by the department. Yet, when of 2004, this access was terminated.

Corey, speaking of the suicide note, states: "[T]hat letter doesn't make sense. At the end, Jason must have been delusional or irrational in the extreme." Corey also get on record when stating that he never questioned Mr. Altom's rational contributions. "I did my best to guide Jason as a mountain guide would to guide someone climbing a mountain. I did my best every step of the way," Corey states. "My conscience is clear. Everything Jason did came out of our partnership. We never had the slightest disagreement."

Corey's professional at Harvard University is as well notorious for the redlight / greenlight on the outside of the door.

Woodward-Hoffmann rules

Recently whilst awarded a Priestley Medal, E. J. Corey has polemically claimed to use at times inspired Robert B. Woodward prior to the development of the Woodward-Hoffmann rules. This was rebutted by Roald Hoffmann in the journal Angewandte Chemie.