Ken Coates (historian)

Ken Coates
Ken Coates Speaking in 2015
Born	1956 Alberta
Nationality	Canadian
Academic background
Alma mater	University of British Columbia
Academic work
Discipline	History
Institutions	University of Saskatchewan (Canada Research Chair and faculty member in the Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy)

Ken Coates (born 1956 in Alberta and raised in Whitehorse, Yukon) is a Canadian historian focused on the history of the Canadian North and Aboriginal rights and indigenous claims. Other areas of specialization include Arctic sovereignty; science, technology and society, with an emphasis on Japan; world and comparative history; and post-secondary education. Coates is a professor and Canada Research Chair in Regional Innovation, Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy, and Director, International Centre for Northern Governance and Development at the University of Saskatchewan. In 2015, Coastes was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

While Coates was dean of arts at the University of Waterloo, he played an integral role in the development of the University of Waterloo Stratford Campus and was a member of the Waterloo Stratford Campus Advisory Board.

Coates received his B.A. and Ph.D. from the University of British Columbia, and his M.A. from the University of Manitoba. He was a sessional lecturer in the Department of History at Langara College from 1980 to 1982 and at the University of British Columbia from 1982 to 1983. He then joined Brandon University as an associate professor from 1983 to 1986 before joining the History Department at the University of Victoria from 1986 to 1992. In 1991 Coates was appointed the first vice-president academic at the University of Northern British Columbia, where he stayed until 1995. Coates taught at the University of Waikato in New Zealand from 1995 to 1997. He has held the position of Dean of Arts at the University of New Brunswick from 1997 to 2000, the University of Saskatchewan from 2001 to 2004, and the University of Waterloo from 2006 to 2012.