Academic career Coakley has taught at
Lancaster University (1976–1991),
Oriel College, Oxford (1991–1993), and
Harvard University in the divinity school (1993–2007; as Mallinckrodt Professor of Divinity, 1995–2007). She was a visiting professor of religion at
Princeton University (2003–2004). In 2006, she was elected the
Norris–Hulse Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge (the first woman appointed to this chair) and took up the position in 2007. In 2011, she became deputy chair of the School of Arts and Humanities with a four-year appointment on the general board of the university. She retired as Norris–Hulse Professor in 2018 and was made
professor emeritus. She has been an
honorary professor at the
Logos Institute and the
University of St Andrews since 2018 and a visiting professorial fellow at the
Australian Catholic University since 2019. Coakley's teaching and research interests cover a number of disciplines cognate to
systematic theology, including the
philosophy of religion, the
philosophy of science,
patristics,
feminist theory, and the intersections of law and medicine with religion. Her contributions to these areas have generally been by way of co-ordinating research projects and editing or co-editing collections of papers. It was through these collaborative projects that her profile initially gained a level of international prominence. At the time of her appointment to the Norris–Hulse chair in Cambridge in 2006, Coakley had published her doctoral thesis and her widely discussed monograph
Powers and Submissions. From 2005 to 2008, Coakley co-directed, with
Martin A. Nowak, the "Evolution and Theology of Cooperation" project at Harvard University sponsored by the
Templeton Foundation, out of which has come a co-edited volume,
Evolution, Games, and God: The Principle of Cooperation. An earlier interdisciplinary project on "Pain and Its Transformations", undertaken with
Arthur Kleinman at Harvard (as part of the Mind, Brain, Behavior Initiative), produced
Pain and Its Transformations: The Interface of Biology and Culture (co-ed. with
Kay Kaufman Shelemay, Harvard UP, 2007). She delivered the
Gifford Lectures in Aberdeen, Scotland, in 2012. She holds honorary degrees from
Lund University, St Andrews,
University of St Michael's College,
Toronto, and
Heythrop College, London.
Ordained ministry Coakley was
ordained in the
Church of England as a
deacon in 2000 and as a
priest in 2001. She has assisted in parishes in Waban, Massachusetts, and at the
Church of St Mary and St Nicholas, Littlemore, Oxford, England (where she served her title). Her training for the priesthood included periods working in a hospital and a prison. In 2011 she was appointed an honorary canon of
Ely Cathedral where she assisted with the morning office and Eucharist until 2018. Coakley now lives in the US, but returns to the UK every year for a period in the summer during which she has permission to officiate at
St Barnabas Church, Jericho,
Oxford. In 2005 Coakley co-founded, with
Sam Wells, the Littlemore Group of scholar-priests. The group writes accessible theological texts from the perspective of parish ministry. In 2012, she was invited to speak to the House of Bishops regarding a vote on consecrating women bishops. == Major themes ==