Prior to coming to Johns Hopkins, Katharine Noel was the Writer in Residence at Claremont McKenna College, from 2009 to 2013. From 2002 to 2009, she was the Jones Lecturer at Stanford University, where she held Wallace Stegner and Truman Capote fellowships in 2000–2002. Prior to teaching at Stanford, she worked for two years at Gould Farm, a program in the Berkshire Mountains for adults with mental illnesses, and for four years at a shelter for homeless women and children.