Jennifer Cole is the research analyst for emergency management, working within the Homeland Security and Resilience Department. Since joining the HSR Department, Jennifer’s interests have focused on emergency preparedness and response issues, particularly in regard to surge capacity in civil contingencies and multi-agency cooperation, and the interaction of the public, private and volunteer sectors in responding to large-scale emergencies. She is the project head for RUSI's annual workshops on Emergency Response, Command and Control and The Role of the Media in Emergencies.

Jennifer is editor of the monthly journal Homeland Security and Resilience Monitor as well as the HSR Department's regular e-newsletter. She has appeared on Sky News as a media commentator and writes regular commentary for the RUSI website. An editor with more than fifteen years experience on a variety of publications, Jennifer joined RUSI in 2007 from the educational publisher Hotcourses, for whom she worked on a portfolio of publications produced on behalf of the British Council. She has previously worked at Midsummer Books and John Brown Publishing.

She holds an MA in Archaeology and Anthropology from the University of Cambridge and it was also at Cambridge, as a member of the University Officer Training Corps, that her interest in defence and security began. As a member of the FANY (PRVC), a uniformed Corps with a joint military and civilian role, she works with the London District HQ Integrated Contingency Planning team and has taken part in several London-wide Emergency Planning exercises and actual call-outs, including the aftermath of the bombings on July 7 2005.