Cole-Dai retires after distinguished career of research, teaching

Jihong Cole-Dai, Distinguished Professor in South Dakota State University's College of Natural Sciences, is set to retire after more than two decades of service. 

After two decades of teaching and pioneering research into the chemical makeup of the atmosphere, South Dakota State University Distinguished Professor Jihong Cole-Dai will retire at the end of the spring semester.

"I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to work at SDSU," Cole-Dai said. "I've always been interested in both science and education, and this university gave me the opportunity to do both. SDSU was a very good place to do the things I wanted to do."

Cole-Dai's accomplished career has been characterized by his world travels, where he has stepped foot on places that only a select few humans have been before. To better understand the Earth's environment, Cole-Dai has spent his career studying ice cores — cylinders of ice that are pulled up from the depths of glaciers and ice sheets — and has made numerous trips to both the North Pole and South Pole to retrieve these key pieces of scientific information.

"The first trip I took to Antarctica as an SDSU faculty member was in the winter of 2004," Cole-Dai explained. "I went with two graduate students to collect 8,000 pounds of ice samples." 

Because places like Antarctica stay freezing cold all year round, the snow never melts. This means that snow and ice from thousands of years ago are buried in the depths of Antarctica's ground. As Cole-Dai explains, snowflakes also carry a lot of information about the atmosphere and, when studied, can reveal evidence of important climatic events, like volcanic eruptions, cycles of ice ages and wind patterns, throughout history. By retrieving ice cores deep within the ice sheets, Cole-Dai can reconstruct the climatic history of the world by studying the chemical markers within the ice cores.

"We can go back year by year," Cole-Dai said. "So, we can get a very good picture of what was happening at the time when that snowflake fell. We easily go back a few thousand years, and, in some cases, we can go back many hundreds of thousands of years."

After more than 30 years of this research, first at Ohio State University's Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center, where he worked as a scientist, Cole-Dai has become widely regarded as among the experts in volcanic eruptions and paleoclimatology. He has produced over 95 publications, which have been cited over 6,900 times from researchers around the world.

Some of his most pivotal studies include a landmark paper published in the Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres, which documented explosive volcanic eruptions across the 11,000-year Holocene epoch. This work has provided humanity with a baseline understanding of how ancient volcanic activity influences the climate.

As one might imagine, traveling to Antarctica has brought about considerable adventure to Cole-Dai's career. In one particularly memorable trip to the South Pole in 2004, Cole-Dai, who is originally from China and was one of the first Chinese students allowed to study in the U.S. after the country's Cultural Revolution in the 1970s, served as translator on a rescue mission of a Chinese researcher who became seriously ill in Antarctica. Cole-Dai, along with a doctor and a pilot, flew for four hours to one of the most remote locations in Antarctica to rescue the scientist.

"That was a memorable trip," Cole-Dai said. "Thankfully the scientist ended up OK."

While research has been a foundational part of Cole-Dai's career, his teaching has been equally impactful. Since joining SDSU's Department of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Physics  in 2000, he has taught classes every single semester, in courses ranging from advanced analytical chemistry to introduction to research.

"Education is very important, especially for graduate students," Cole-Dai said. "You're talking about people who will become future leaders in science, education — all kinds of work.”

During his time at SDSU, Cole-Dai has mentored 14 doctoral students who have gone on to careers in academics, industry and science institutions, as well as countless master's and undergraduate students. Here's what some of his former students had to say:

"I was lucky enough to start at SDSU at the same time as Dr. Cole-Dai, and I was one of his first graduate students," said Drew Budner, a doctoral graduate from SDSU and now a professor at Coastal Carolina University. "I remember Dr. Cole-Dai as a caring teacher, dedicated researcher and excellent writer. I learned a lot from Dr. Cole-Dai, not only as chemist but also ways to be successful as a professor."

"Working for Dr. Cole-Dai offered so many wonderful opportunities," said Alyson Lanciki, SDSU grad and now a senior scientific editor for Metrohm, a scientific equipment company. "Not only did he push his students to succeed, under his advisement and guidance we were able to flourish in the scientific community. From attending AGU (American Geophysical Union) meetings every December in San Francisco to present our work, performing fieldwork in harsh polar regions (Summit Camp, Greenland, in 2007 in my case), and working closely with world-class scientists from other universities, we were given a broader perspective of the impact of our climate research. Through these experiences, I was offered a post-doctoral position in France that took me to Antarctica, also for ice core research. Additionally, the dedication and effort Jihong gave to improve my writing skills has also paid off, as I have held the position of Scientific Editor at Metrohm International HQ (Switzerland) for the past 7 years. I cannot thank him enough for these gifts. I'm happy to hear that he is finally getting to retire and enjoy more time with his family. He truly is a wonderful man, scientist and mentor."

"(Dr. Cole-Dai) had a large impact on my life. He had a great ability to teach what it really means to be a research scientist. He opened doors that I didn't know existed and with Jihong's mentoring, SDSU's old saying of 'you can go anywhere from here' became a reality," said David Ferris, doctoral graduate from SDSU and now a supervisor for a National Science Foundation-backed lab. "I will never forget being frozen to the core working in a freezer and looking over at (Dr. Cole-Dai) and he's unzipping his coat a bit and raising his hat above his ears, too warm. I couldn't believe it.  I feel privileged to consider Jihong a warm friend and great mentor."

Cole-Dai's contributions to SDSU extend beyond the lab and the lecture hall. He delivered the David Fee Memorial Lecture at SDSU's 2024 Celebration of Faculty Excellence, drawing on his decades of ice core data to speak to both the scientific community and the public about the urgency of understanding Earth's changing climate. Last year, he also received the university's "Distinguished Professor" designation, one of the highest honors SDSU bestows on its faculty.

In retirement, Cole-Dai and his wife will move to the East Coast. While he doesn't have any concrete plans, he will continue to see his graduate students work through and hopes to continue teaching in some capacity.