[2] Two years after his birth, his family relocated to Boyne City, Michigan, then later to Petoskey where Linnell graduated from High School in 1940.
Matriculating to the College of Wooster in Ohio, he graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1944 with bachelor's degrees in chemistry, math, and physics.
[4] With his undergraduate studies completed, during the summer of 1943 Linnell enlisted in the U.S. Army to serve in World War II.
[5] Linnell completed officer candidate school in 1944, and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Army Signal Corps at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey.
Under doctoral advisor Bart J. Bok,[1] Linnell received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1950 with a thesis titled, Astronomical Photoelectric Photometry.
[7] He made a study of the eclipsing binary UX Ursae Majoris while at Harvard, producing the first photoelectric light curve of this system.
[3] In October 1953, associate professor Linnell proposed joining the astronomy programs at Amherst, Mount Holyoke, and Smith colleges, and the University of Massachusetts into a merged department.