Thomas R. Cole is the McGovern Chair in Medical Humanities and Director of the McGovern Center for Humanities and Ethics UT Health in Houston. Cole graduated from Yale University (B.A. Philosophy, 1971), Wesleyan University (M.A., History, 1975) and the University of Rochester, (Ph.D., History, 1981).Dr. Cole has published many articles and several books on the history of aging and humanistic gerontology. His book The Journey of Life: A Cultural History of Aging in America (Cambridge University Press, 1992) was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. He is senior editor of What Does It Mean to Grow Old? (Duke, 1986), the Handbook of Humanities and Aging (Springer, 1992, 2nd edition 1999) and Voices and Visions: Toward a Critical Gerontology (Springer, 1993). Other co-edited books include The Oxford Book of Aging (noted by the New Yorker as one of the most memorable books of 1995), Practicing the Medical Humanities (2003). Cole’s interest in the life stories of older people has taken him into biography and film-making. In 1984, he encountered a hospitalized psychiatric patient who claimed he was the “original Texas integration leader.” Their collaboration resulted in a book—No Color Is My Kind: the Life of Eldrewey Stearns and the Desegregation of Houston (1997) – and an accompanying film, The Strange Demise of Jim Crow, broadcast nationally on over 60 PBS stations and internationally by the State Department. The documentary received numerous awards and was nominated for a regional Emmy and a National Humanities Medal. Cole’s film, Still Life: The Humanity of Anatomy, was an official selection at the Doubletake Documentary Film festival in April 2002. This work explores the special yet unstated relationship between medical students in the anatomy lab and the people who donate their bodies for dissection. In 2001, Cole’s writing workshop program for elders was featured in the PBS documentary Life Stories. In 2007, he co-produced Living with Stroke, a prize-winning film about the invisible world of stroke survivors.Cole is senior editor of the book Faculty Health in Academic Medicine: Physicians, Scientists and the Pressures of Success (Humana, 2009), which explores the impact of the spiritual and economic crises facing academic health centers today. Cole’s work has been featured in the New York Times, National Public Radio, Voice of America, PBS, and at the United Nations. He serves as an advisor to the United Nations NGO Committee on Ageing, the Union for Reform Judaism and various editorial and foundation boards. In 2004-2005, he served as a consultant to the President’s Council on Bioethics project on aging and was featured speaker at the AARP/United Nations Briefing Sessions on Aging in February 2009. His most recent book is the co-edited Guide to Humanistic Studies in Aging (Johns Hopkins, 2010). Cole has just produced a unique, collaborative, fictional text in narrative ethics: The Brewsters: An Active Learning Experience in Health Care Ethics (UTHEALTH, 2011), an online version of which is in progress. With Nathan Carlin and Ronald Carson, he is currently writing a textbook, Introduction to Medical Humanities for Cambridge University Press.