Sophie Dobzhansky Coe was an anthropologist, food historian and author, primarily known for her work on the history of chocolate.

She graduated in 1955, majoring in anthropology, from Radcliffe College, where she was apparently known for her linguistic prowess (speaking Russian and Portuguese). She continued her postgraduate studies at Harvard and received her PhD in anthropology in 1964.

Sophie Coe made a unique contribution to the field through her study of native New World cooking, writing a number of scholarly essays for Petits Propos Culinaires (PPC). Her research in this area culminated in America's First Cuisines (1994). This work contained a substantial amount of material on chocolate, which Sophie Coe decided to expand upon for her next book, The True History of Chocolate (1996). She became seriously ill during the research and writing of this book and it was published posthumously in 1996, having been completed by her widower, Michael D. Coe.

Coe built an extensive collection of books on culinary history including community cookbooks, nearly 1,000 volumes from around the world dating from the eighteenth century onwards, as well as a group of manuscript cookbooks. She donated her collection of community cookbooks to the Schlesinger Library before her death, and afterwards her husband gave the library the rest of her collection.

After her death, Michael Coe, with the help of their friends Alan Davidson and Harlan Walker, set up the Sophie Coe Prize, a charitable trust based in the UK. The prize is awarded annually at the Oxford Symposium on Food & Cookery (which Coe attended every year) to an outstanding and original essay or book chapter in food history. One of the first of its kind at its foundation in 1995, the Sophie Coe Prize remains the most generous and esteemed prize for thorough and readable food history scholarship.