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Biography
Jennifer Coates, PhD is an Associate Professor of Food Policy and Applied Nutrition at the Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy and a Senior Researcher at the Tufts Feinstein International Center.
Dr. Coates’s research focuses on the development of methods for improving the design, implementation, and evaluation of international nutrition and food security programs in both development and humanitarian emergency contexts. Methods-related initiatives include the development and validation of: methods for scaling up global dietary data collection and use (INDDEX); indicators of the affordability of quality diets in Africa (IMMANA-IANDA); a standardized approach to malnutrition causal analysis and response assessment (ACF); methods for evaluating the micronutrient impact and functional health outcomes of national fortification programs (GAIN); dietary diversity indicators in emergency-prone contexts (WFP); and global experiential food security measures (FANTA). She also conducts research to understand the implementation and impact of integrated food security programs, including identifying promising models for sustainable exit from Title II-funded food aid programs (FANTA III), and examining the implementation challenges of integrating agriculture and nutrition programming (Ethiopia/ENGINE). Dr. Coates serves on the Technical Working Group to improve the measurement of food consumption in household consumption and expenditure surveys, through the United Nations Inter-Agency Working Group On Agricultural And Rural Statistics; on the UN Expert Advisory Group on Food and Nutrition Security Measurement; and the Editorial Board of the Global Food Security Journal.
In addition to her research and policy engagement, Dr. Coates teaches a range of graduate courses at the Friedman School.