[3] Her Ph.D. dissertation, Planar Phonology and Morphology, was completed in 1987, under the supervision of Morris Halle, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Department of Linguistics and Philosophy.
[4] In 1991, the study was recognized by Garland Publishing and presented as an Outstanding Dissertation in Linguistics.
[5] Cole introduced ranked constraints in formal grammar to model the interaction between morphology and phonology.
[9] Cole has carried out field research and authored encyclopedia articles on Sindhi (Indo-Aryan).
[11] She has served as an elected member of the Executive Council of the Linguistic Society of America (2007–2010).