Kathleen Coleman was born and raised in Zimbabwe. She studied at the University of Cape Town (BA 1973), the University of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) (BA Hons 1975), and Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford (DPhil 1979). Before joining the Harvard faculty she taught at the University of Cape Town (1979-1993) and held the chair of Latin at Trinity College, Dublin (1993-1998). She is a former Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung. In 2002 she delivered the 15th Todd Memorial Lecture at the University of Sydney (see photos below), and in 2003 the opening lecture in the 2003 series of Wolfson Lectures at Oxford to honor the centenary of Sir Ronald Syme. In the same year she was appointed Harvard College Professor, a five-year appointment in recognition of contributions to teaching, and in 2005 she was the recipient of the Joseph R. Levenson Teaching Prize for Senior Faculty, awarded by the Undergraduate Council of Harvard College. In 2007 she was awarded a Walter Channing Cabot Fellowship, an annual award given to Harvard faculty members in recognition of achievements in literature, history or art. In 2008 she received the Ausoniuspreis from the University of Trier, and delivered the Syme Lecture at Victoria University Wellington, in New Zealand.

Professor Coleman is the author of Statius, Silvae IV: Text, Translation, and Commentary (Oxford University Press, 1988, re-issued in paperback by Bristol Classical Press/Duckworth, 1998) and Martial, Liber Spectaculorum: Text, Translation, and Commentary (Oxford University Press, 2006), and co-editor, with J. Diggle, J. B. Hall, and H. D. Jocelyn, of F.R.D. Goodyear. Papers on Latin Literature (Duckworth, 1992). In addition to her work on Latin literature she has published numerous articles on Roman spectacle, including "Fatal charades: Roman executions staged as mythological enactments", Journal of Roman Studies 80 (1990), 44-73, and "Launching into history: aquatic displays in the early Empire", JRS 83 (1993), 48-74. Her most recent articles include "Stones in the forest: epigraphic allusion in the Siluae," in J. J. L. Smolenaars, H.-J. van Dam, and R. R. Nauta (eds.), The Poetry of Statius (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 19-43 and "Exchanging gladiators for an aqueduct at Aphrodisias (SEG 50.1096)," in a volume in honor of Piet Conradie, Professor Emeritus at the University of Stellenbosch = Acta Classica 51 (2008), 31-46. She has participated in several radio programs and television documentaries about the Roman amphitheatre, and she was the featured "Scientist on the Spot" on the Science Buzz feature at the Science Museum of Minnesota for August-September 2007 http://www.smm.org/buzz/museum/ask/coleman/questions#answers. Her current book-length projects are a monograph on Roman public executions for Oxford University Press, and a study of arena spectacles for Yale University Press.

Professor Coleman is a member of the editorial boards of The American Journal of Philology, Exemplaria Classica, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Mnemosyne and Mnemosyne Supplements, and Oxford Bibliographies Online, a member of the Comité scientifique of the Fondation Hardt in Vandoeuvres, Switzerland, and co-editor with Richard Rutherford (Christ Church, Oxford) of a new series, Oxford Approaches to Classical Literature, for Oxford University Press (USA). In her capacity as Chair of the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae Fellowship Committee of the American Philological Association, she is a member of the Internationale Thesaurus-Kommission in Munich, Germany.