[1] During the period from 1906 to 1910 he was in charge of the Division of Animal Breeding and Pathology at the Rhode Island Experiment Station, as well as an instructor in zoology at Yale University.
[2][3] Cole's contributions to genetics covered a wide scope of interests, and he collaborated with a diverse group of researchers from various university departments who studied a range of plants and animals.
His department's research explored the genetic improvement of corn and other food crops, poultry, dairy cattle, other livestock, bees, and fur animals.
Along with papers considering plumage color, the team published work on the genetics of the birds' immunology, fertility, and physical defects.
[4] In the 1920s, Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau invited Cole to serve on an advisory committee.
[2] In 1904 he joined an expedition to Yucatán, and collected and identified 128 species and subspecies of birds, reporting his work in the Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology.