Geoffrey "Geoff" William Coates (born 1966) is an American chemist and the Tisch University Professor in the department of chemistry and chemical biology at Cornell University.
Early life and education Coates was born in 1966 in Evansville, Indiana. He received a B.A. degree in chemistry from Wabash College in 1989. He entered graduate school at Stanford University where he worked with Robert M. Waymouth as a Hertz Fellow. His thesis work investigated the stereoselectivity of metallocene-based Ziegler-Natta catalysts. He was awarded a Ph.D. in organic chemistry in 1994. Coates then was a NSF Postdoctoral Fellow with Robert H. Grubbs at the California Institute of Technology. At Caltech, Coates worked on ring-closing metathesis reactions to functionalize polyolefins, and supramolecular phenyl-perfluorophenyl pi-stacking interactions.
Independent career In 1997, Coates joined the faculty of Cornell University. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 2001, and to Professor in 2002. He was appointed to the first Tisch University Professorship in 2008.
Selected honors and professional activities Coates has received numerous awards for his work in organometallic and polymer chemistry.
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellow ACS Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award 1997 - Camille and Henry Dreyfus New Faculty Award 1999 - Named by the MIT Technology Review as a TR100 Innovator Under 35 2000 - David and Lucile Packard Foundation Fellowship in Science and Engineering 2000 - Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award 2006 - American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow 2007/08 - Regional Finalist of the Blavatanik Award 2009 - ACS Carl S. Marvel Creative Polymer Chemistry Award 2011 - Elected member of American Academy of Arts & Sciences 2017 - Elected member of National Academy of Inventors 2017 - Elected member of National Academy of Sciences 2020 - Scientific Advisory Board for the Welch Foundation 2022 - ENI award Advanced Environmental Solutions prize 2023 - NAS Award for the Industrial Application of Science 2026 - Benjamin Franklin Prize in Chemistry 2026 - Balzan PrizeBalzan Prize 2026
Entrepreneurship and affiliations Coates is the scientific cofounder of Novomer,Novomer website. Ecolectro,Ecolectro website. Intermix Performance Materials,Intermix Performance Materials website. and Imperion Coatings. Novomer was acquired by Danimer Scientific in 2021. Coates is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of KensaGroup and is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Welch Foundation. He is a Director of the Board of the Mitsubishi Chemical Group. Coates was an associate editor of the journal Macromolecules from 2008 to 2021, and is now an associate editor of the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
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