Sarah Coakley is an Anglican systematic theologian and philosopher of religion with wide interdisciplinary interests. In 2011 she became deputy chair of the School of Arts and Humanities at Cambridge University.

Coakley received her PhD on Ernst Troeltsch from the University of Cambridge. She has taught at Lancaster University (1976–1991); Oriel College, Oxford (1991-3); Harvard University, in the Divinity School (1993–2007; Mallinckrodt Professor of Divinity, 1995–2007); and has been a visiting professor of religion at Princeton University (2003-4). In 2006, she was elected the Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge (the first woman appointed to this chair) and took up the position in 2007. In 2011 she became deputy chair of the School of Arts and Humanities with a four-year appointment on the General Board of the university.

Coakley is a priest of the Church of England and has assisted in parishes in Waban, Massachusetts, and in Littlemore, Oxford, England (where she served her title).