Goresky received his Ph.D. from Brown University in 1976. His thesis, titled Geometric Cohomology and Homology of Stratified Objects, was written under the direction of MacPherson.^[1] Many of the results in his thesis were published in 1981 by the American Mathematical Society. He has taught at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, and Northeastern University.^{[citation needed]}

Goresky received a Sloan Research Fellowship in 1981.^[2] He received the Coxeter–James Prize in 1984.^[3] In 2002, Goresky and MacPherson were jointly awarded the Leroy P. Steele Prize for Seminal Contribution to Research by the American Mathematical Society.^[4][5] In 2012 Goresky became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.^[6]

Goresky's PhD advisor, Robert D. MacPherson, later became his life partner. Their discovery of intersection homology made "both of them famous."^[7] After the collapse of the Soviet Union, they were instrumental in channeling aid to Russian mathematicians, especially many who had to hide their sexuality.^[7]

• Goresky, Mark; MacPherson, Robert, La dualité de Poincaré pour les espaces singuliers, C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris Sér. A-B 284 (1977), no. 24, A1549–A1551. MR0440533
• Goresky, Mark; MacPherson, Robert, Intersection homology theory, Topology 19 (1980), no. 2, 135–162. doi:10.1016/0040-9383(80)90003-8 MR0572580
• Goresky, Mark, Whitney stratified chains and cochains, Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 267 (1981), 175–196.
• Goresky, Mark; MacPherson, Robert, Intersection homology. II, Inventiones Mathematicae 72 (1983), no. 1, 77–129. doi:10.1007/BF01389130 MR0696691
• Goresky, Mark; MacPherson, Robert, Stratified Morse Theory, Springer Verlag, N. Y. (1989), Ergebnisse vol. 14.

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