Dr. Cole is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Radiologic Sciences and Therapy within the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences. As a biological anthropologist and skeletal biologist, she is interested in how bone tissue quality and strength is shaped by life history, including age, demographics, behavior, and pathology. She studies mechanically and physiologically driven microstructural changes in the mechanical competency of bone, in scenarios ranging from low-force osteoporotic fracture to injury biomechanics. Her current research focuses on age-associated morphometric changes to cortical porosity and lacunar-canalicular osteocyte networks. 

Dr. Cole’s methodological interest is the development of automated image processing routines to isolate and morphometrically characterize bone tissue microstructures. She works with images derived from brightfield and polarized histology, widefield fluorescence microscopy, micro-CT, synchrotron radiation micro-CT, and multiphoton confocal imaging. Additionally, she develops statistical computing workflows for automated feature selection, multivariate modeling, and data visualization.