Joseph E. Coates, OBE was a British physical chemist and academic.
[2] He then worked at University College London alongside Sir William Ramsay before moving to Karlsruhe Institute of Technology to work with Fritz Haber.
[2] During the First World War, he served with the Royal Naval Air Service as a Senior Technical Officer at the R.N.
Coates was the first president of the University College of Swansea Chemical Society (1921-1926) and he served twice as chair of the South Wales Section of the then Royal Institute of Chemistry in 1924-26 and 1931-33.
[1][6] At a ceremony on the 1 December 1962, Coates was presented with a portrait by the artist, Mr Kenneth W. Hancock, Principal of Swansea College of Art, which was then accepted by Professor C. H. Hassall, the present occupant of the chair, from Professor Coates for hanging in the corridor of the new Chemistry Department building.