Leonard A. Cole, Bio

Dr. Leonard A. Cole is an expert on bioterrorism and on terror medicine. He is an adjunct professor at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (department of emergency medicine) and at Rutgers University-Newark (department of political science). At UMDNJ he is Director of the Program on Terror Medicine and Security, which is part of the university’s Center for BioDefense.

He received a B.A. with highest honors from the University of California at Berkeley. Trained in the health sciences and public policy, he holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University, and a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine, which in 2008 awarded him its Alumni Award of Merit. 

Cole is a Fellow of the Phi Beta Kappa Society and has been a recipient of grants and fellowships from the Andrew Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Rockefeller Foundation. He is on the Advisory Board of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism, a trustee of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and a board member of the Columbia University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Alumni Association.   

He has written numerous articles for professional journals as well as general publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Scientific American, and The Sciences. He has testified before congressional committees and made invited presentations to several government agencies including the U.S. Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Office of Technology Assessment.

He has appeared frequently on network and public television and is the author or editor of ten books including The Anthrax Letters (revised 2009), named an HONOR BOOK by the NJ Council for the Humanities, and most recently, Local Planning for Terror and Disaster: From Bioterrorism to Disaster (co-editor 2012).