Operations professional. Chief problem-solver. Music history enthusiast.#
Cole is the Senior School Administrator at the ANU School of Cybernetics. Cole supports the School by running day-to-day administration and getting involved in all sorts of special projects, including installing interactive AI artwork, creating a purpose-fit online resource centre, and rescuing birds from fume hoods. He is as handy with a drill as he is with back-end settings in Sharepoint.
He received a Bachelor of Arts from Columbia College Chicago and a Master’s Degree in Urban and Regional Planning and Policy from the University of Sydney, with an emphasis on local economic development and active transportation. After independently researching good principles of community and local economic development, he worked on a project for the NSW RTA studying the economic and social impacts of a highway bypass to the small coastal town of Karuah NSW. Cole was awarded the John Odongo Prize in Community and Economic Development for this work.
Cole returned to Chicago to work for the Active Transportation Alliance focusing on bicycling and active transportation advocacy, working with different community groups and police to educate Chicago residents about bicycling safety, policy, and infrastructure. He then entered the classroom to teach high schoolers about active transportation in their community.
In 2014 Cole joined a start-up apparel and design business called Harebrained Design, successfully establishing the company as a pop-culture underwear empire. Among the many projects Cole worked on at Harebrained, he is most proud of creating an irreverent NSFW trivia game that Penguin Publishing turned into a book in 2022.
Parenthood keeps him plenty busy, though he does manage to find time to enjoy gardening, DIY home renos, and absorbing cultural history through collecting music on a range of anachronistic formats. Because Spotify doesn’t have liner notes.