She attended the North London Collegiate School and began studying podiatry at Chelsea College, but soon developed a preference for chemistry and graduated with honors in the subject in 1950.

She was awarded a Sir John Dill Fellowship by the English-Speaking Union which allowed her to study at Bryn Mawr College in the United States, she earned an M.A.

She interviewed with Nobel laureate Derek Barton and was accepted to Birkbeck College in London, but was not offered financial aid.

Instead, Caserio returned to Bryn Mawr in the U.S., earning her Ph.D. in 1956 with a dissertation entitled "The kinetics of bromination of naphthalene.

[10] Notable for its comprehensiveness and then-unusual emphasis on spectroscopy, it proved enormously influential in how the subject was taught.