Geoffrey W. Coates was born in 1966 in Evansville, IN. He received a B.A. degree in chemistry from Wabash College in 1989 working with Roy G. Miller and a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Stanford University in 1994 with Robert M. Waymouth. After postdoctoral research with Robert H. Grubbs at the California Institute of Technology, he joined the faculty at Cornell University in 1997, where he is now Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology. His research interests include the development of single-site catalysts for synthesis and the preparation and characterization of well-defined polymer architectures.