Cole is from Ohio, but DC has been his home for the past several years. Prior to Georgetown Law, he was a paralegal at the Federal Public Defender for the District of Columbia focused on international investigations and working with Arabic-speaking clients. He was later an investigator and the Investigative Supervisor at Civil Rights Corps, a legal non-profit that uses litigation, storytelling, and policy advocacy to challenge wealth-based and race-based oppression in the criminal legal system. There, his substantive work focused on police and prosecutorial misconduct, money bail, and inadequate responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in jails.

Cole graduated magna cum laude from Georgetown University with a B.S. Foreign Service. His thesis focused on community experiences of gentrification in Anacostia. As an undergraduate, he operated after-school and summer school literacy programs in D.C. Public Schools. He also interned at the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia and DC Lawyers for Youth, a juvenile justice advocacy organization. He completed a Master’s in Social Development Practice with distinction at University College London where he participated in action research projects on university-community partnerships in East London and urban social movements in Salvador, Brazil. His dissertation focused on the effects of police searches on citizenship.

In his free time, Cole enjoys exploring cities, making ice cream, and playing clawhammer banjo.