Thomas R. Cole (born March 15, 1949) is a writer, historian, filmmaker, and gerontologist.
His father, Burton David Michel, died in a car accident in September 1953, when Cole was 4 years old.
His father's death prompted a lifelong personal and academic inquiry into issues of spirituality, aging, and the question of what it means to grow old.
In 1982 Cole became a professor at UTMB Galveston, where he assisted his mentor, Ronald Carson, in developing the nation's first Ph.D.
[3] His 1993 book, The Journey of Life: A Cultural History of Aging in America]examined the tradition of European thought and art about aging, traced its evolution in America, and emphasized the absence of social and cultural meaning in later life.
[4] In 1997 Cole wrote No Color is My Kind, the story of Eldrewey Stearns and the integration of Houston.
[5] Cole and his student at the time, Kate de Medeiros, taught Life Story Writing Workshops to groups of elders in Galveston from 1998 to 2003.
In 2018 Cole began training to become a Spiritual Director under Rabbi James Ponet.
In 2021, he founded Congregation Beth Israel's Center for Healing, Hope, and the Human Spirit with Rabbi David Lyon and began working as a Spiritual Director at Temple Beth Israel in Houston.