After graduating, she became Assistant Professor of Classics and Associate Professor of History at the
University of Illinois at Chicago. In 1991 she was a Fellow of the Institute of Humanities at
UIC. She published
Theoi Megaloi: The Cult of the Great Gods at Samothrace, based on her doctoral dissertation, in 1986. Her second book,
Landscapes, Gender, and Ritual Space: The Ancient Greek Experience, came out in 2004. She has also worked on pigs in Ancient Greek culture. In 1992 she joined the Department of Classics at the
University at Buffalo, where she was Chair of the department from 1994 to 1995 and again 1998–2004. Cole was chair of the
Society for Classical Studies Committee for Professional Ethics in 1986. She was Directeur d’Etudes Associé at the
Ecole Pratique des Hautes Études in 1990. In 1996-97 she was a Fellow of the
National Humanities Center. She has also received fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, == Select publications ==