Noelle Caskey joined WestEd in 2001 as a Senior Research Associate, working primarily as an External Evaluator with the California External Evaluator Project (now the Comprehensive School Reform Facilitator Initiative) and also with the Strategic Literacy Initiative. Since then, she has worked with low-performing schools and districts in California, Hawaii, and Nevada. Over the years her work has become increasingly focused on coaching principals whose schools are under state or federal sanctions.

Prior to joining WestEd, Caskey conducted her own consulting business for 10 years. As a consultant, she evaluated California school reform and teacher professional development initiatives, served as an evaluator and consultant for members of the Regional Professional Development Consortia, acted as state evaluator for California's Even Start Family Literacy Program, and founded and facilitated a regional coalition to address diversity issues in San Francisco Bay Area schools. She continues to work in the area of diversity with the Bridging Cultures workshops, which she provides to interested clients on request.

Caskey is also a trained facilitator with considerable experience helping troubled organizations find common working ground. She has worked with a variety of public and nonprofit agencies, served as an equity coach for the Bay Area School Reform Collaborative, and provided consulting services to the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan. Caskey has also taught English at the Berkeley and Davis campuses of the University of California. Her poetry has been published in anthologies internationally.

She received a BA in history and literature from Harvard University and a PhD in literature, psychology, and linguistics from the University of California, Berkeley.