Previously, Dr. Coe was an assistant professor in the Department of Health Services at the University of Washington, the associate director of research at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, and an assistant professor at Tilburg University in the Netherlands where she was awarded the Marie Curie Incoming International Fellowship from the European Union to study the health effects of retirement. She received her Ph.D. in economics from MIT in 2005. She has also worked at the Urban Institute and the Department of the Treasury in the Division of Tax Analysis.