Chonacky had a career as a physics professor at Southern Connecticut State University, and later at other schools as diverse as Bates College, Tufts University, and The Evergreen State College. He has worked in research and development at Yale School of Medicine, Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Tufts University, the Rome Air Development Center, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and Columbia University before retiring and coming to New Haven where he has been associated with Yale, currently as a Research Associate in the Department of Applied Physics of the School of Engineering.