David Cole

David Cole is the president and CEO of the Science History Institute, a role that adds to his decades-long career of leading cultural organizations. Since joining the Institute in May 2020, his innovative, creative, and strategic thinking has greatly expanded the ways the Institute shares the history of science both locally and globally.

Cole previously served as the executive director of the Hagley Museum and Library in Wilmington, Delaware. Prior to his tenure at Hagley, he held positions as vice president for advancement, communications, and public education at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and director of strategic initiatives for the Harvard Art Museums of Harvard University.

He is the author of The Power of Innovation, a 2018 exhibition on American invention history and the U.S. patent system presented at the National Museum of China. He was a Henry Luce Foundation Fellow and a research fellow of the Learning Innovations Laboratory at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Cole has also taught at Harvard, as well as at Rice University and the University of Texas at Austin. He chairs the boards of the Delaware Council on Economic Education and the Wilmington Children’s Chorus, is a trustee of the Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums, and is a member of the Philadelphia Committee on Foreign Relations.

A graduate of Vanderbilt University, Cole received a master’s degree from Harvard and a PhD in the history of art and American studies from UT Austin.

David is a member of the Science History Institute’s Board of Directors and oversees the Leadership Team.