Jeffrey Coates is Strategic Initiatives Associate at the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Jeff 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. He has worked in disaster recovery in Sri Lanka and as a Peace Corps volunteer in Guyana. Coates earned a Bachelor of Arts in anthropology from the University of Oklahoma and a Master of Public Health from Tulane University in New Orleans.