Rate My Professor Jacquelyn Cole

Dr. Jacquelyn Cole serves as Associate Professor of Chemistry and Chair of the Chemistry Department at Shepherd University, a position she has held as chair since May 2020, marking her as the first female department chair in the department's history. She earned a B.S. in Chemistry-Forensic Science with minors in Physics and Mathematics from Bethany College in Bethany, West Virginia, followed by a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. Her doctoral research employed MALDI-TOF-MS to investigate immunoglobulin E and other biomolecules. Prior to joining Shepherd University, Cole completed postdoctoral fellowships at the Wadsworth Center of the New York State Department of Health, where she studied estrogen metabolites using LC-MS-MS, and at the National Institute of Mental Health within the National Institutes of Health, focusing on human serum albumin concentrations via LC-MS-MS. Her undergraduate research experiences included National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduates programs at Youngstown State University on site-directed mutagenesis and at Bowling Green State University on polymerization studies. At Shepherd, she was granted tenure and promoted to associate professor effective Fall 2019. Cole has contributed extensively to university service, participating in numerous committees and taskforces, writing exams for two American Chemical Society committees on General Chemistry and General-Organic-Biochemistry, and co-coordinating the annual Seeding Your Future Conference to engage middle-school girls in science and art through hands-on workshops.

Cole's research specializations involve instrumental analysis of essential oils employing GC-MS, LC-MS, IR/UV spectroscopy, and NMR, integrated into undergraduate capstone projects that examine antimicrobial properties and extraction techniques. She also investigates contaminants in the Potomac River, a vital water source for Shepherdstown and surrounding areas. Her scholarly efforts have garnered significant funding, including a $20,000 WV EPSCoR research instrumentation award in 2014 for an LC instrument compatible with a triple quadrupole mass spectrometer, a $35,375 WISH grant in Summer 2020 to update chemistry lab instrumentation, an EPSCoR grant in Fall 2020 for a supercritical fluid extraction system, and $26,750 in 2024 to equip a new Forensics Science laboratory. In Spring 2022, she received the Outstanding Advisor award and was appointed the inaugural John T. Reynolds endowed chair for chemistry. Cole has presented her research at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Meeting of the American Chemical Society and the Biennial Conference on Chemical Education. She teaches courses including CHEM 120, CHEM 120L, CHEM 122, CHEM 122L, CHEM 207, CHEM 207L, CHEM 209, and CHEM 209L.