Dr Jon Cole is currently employed as a Reader in Addictive Behaviour in the School of Psychology at Liverpool University. He has a BSc (Hons) in Psychology (awarded 1991) and a PhD in Psychopharmacology (awarded 1994) from Leeds University.

Dr Cole has been researching and teaching about drugs controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act (1971) for the past 17 years. From 1999 to 2007 he was the course director of the MSc in Addictive Behaviour in the School of Psychology.

In addition, he has been regularly providing input to the National Drugs Expert Witness course run by West Yorkshire Police. Recently he has begun to research tactical decision making in the Police use of Firearms and the behavioural economics of terrorist decision making.

In addition to regularly publishing scientific papers on a range of subjects, he has co-written "Martyrdom: Radicalisation and Terrorist Violence among British Muslims".