Jeffrey Coates joined Knight Foundation in July 2010.

He previously worked with the Greater New Orleans Disaster Recovery Partnership, where he collaborated with more than 50 nonprofits to develop strategic plans for long-term recovery. Before that, he was a supervisor with the American Red Cross' Hurricane Recovery Program in New Orleans. He also co-founded the Recovery Action Learning Laboratory (RALLY) Foundation, a New Orleans-based nonprofit that monitored and evaluated post-disaster programs.

In addition, Coates has served as a Peace Corps community health volunteer in Guyana, an ethnographer in Oklahoma and an intern with the government of Sri Lanka. He earned a bachelor of science in anthropology from the University of Oklahoma and a master of public health from Tulane University in New Orleans. He is a member of the American Public Health Association and American Evaluation Association.