Lisa DeFrank-Cole, EdD

Director of WVU’s Leadership Studies Program, Dr. Lisa DeFrank-Cole began teaching Principles of Leadership in 2007. She previously worked as the executive director for the West Virginia PROMISE Scholarship program; served as an assistant for policy and research under West Virginia Governor Bob Wise; and worked at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

DeFrank-Cole was awarded a Fulbright Specialist Grant to teach Principles of Leadership to female students at the Royal University for Women in the Kingdom of Bahrain. Her research interests include the topics of women and leadership. She typically teaches Leadership 301: Problems in Leadership, and LDR 435: Women and Leadership.

Her recent textbook Women and Leadership: Journey Toward Equity, won a 2022 Textbook and Academic Authors' (TAA) Most Promising New Textbook Award. 

• B.S., Landscape Architecture, West Virginia University (1994)
• M.A., Higher Education Administration, West Virginia University (1996)
• Ed.D., Higher Education Administration, Dissertation: An Exploration of the Differences in Female and Male Self-Perceptions of Presidential Leadership Styles at Colleges and Universities in West Virginia, University of Pittsburgh (2003)