Whitney Kimball Coe is a vice president and Director of National Programs for the Center for Rural Strategies. Kimball Coe directs the work of the National Rural Assembly, a program that brings together rural leaders and advocates from every region with national public- interest organizations, funders, and policymakers in ways that inform public policy and private investment in rural people and places.

In 2017, she was a featured speaker at the inaugural summit of the Obama Foundation and a guest on the radio program On Being with Krista Tippett. Her focus on building civic courage in communities is directly tied to a practice of participation in her hometown of Athens, Tennessee, where she lives with her husband Matt and daughters, Lucy and Susannah. Coe has a MA in Appalachian studies from Appalachian State University in North Carolina and an undergraduate degree in religion and philosophy from Queens University of Charlotte.