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).