Wade Cole is Professor of Sociology at the University of Utah. He holds a PhD in Sociology from Stanford University (2006) and a BA in Political Science from Western Washington University (2000). A macrosociologist, Wade’s interests lie centrally in the subfields of global and transnational sociology, political sociology, and cultural sociology, with ancillary interests in the sociologies of religion, development, education, and health.

The bulk of Wade's research -- his past work on minority-serving and women's colleges, ongoing work on the global human rights regime, and recent work on challenges to liberal norms and institutions -- is informed by sociological neoinstitutionalism and world society theory. He is author of Uncommon Schools: The Global Rise of Postsecondary Institutions for Indigenous Peoples (Stanford University Press) and more than forty articles appearing in journals such as the American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, Social Forces, Social Problems, International Organizations, and International Studies Quarterly, among others.

Empirically, Wade has studied a broad range of outcomes, including state ratification of international human rights treaties and individual petitions to international human rights tribunals; curricular content at tribal, historically Black, Hispanic-serving, and women’s colleges and universities; the civil, political, and physical integrity rights records of governments; women's civil liberties, labor force participation, parliamentary representation, and contraceptive uptake; and income inequality, corruption, childhood vaccination, and population health indicators in comparative cross-national perspective.

Wade has taught graduate seminars in Classical Sociological Theory and Political Sociology, and undergraduate courses in introductory sociology, political sociology, stratification, social movements, and the sociology of indigenous peoples. He previously served as Chair (2021-24), Director of Graduate Studies (2018-21), and Director of Undergraduate Studies (2017-18) in the Department of Sociology at the University of Utah.

Before joining the faculty at the University of Utah in 2011, Wade held positions at the Washington State Institute for Public Policy in Olympia, where he conducted policy-relevant education research for the Washington State Legislature, and Montana State University in Bozeman.

His current research seeks to understand the causes and consequences of the "illiberal turn" in world society. Work in this area explores the recent worldwide downturn in respect for liberal human rights, the rise of populism and its corrosive effects on liberal democracy, and the consequences of eroded trust in science and other liberal institutions.