Linnea developed an interest in biological anthropology and human evolution as well as human development as an undergraduate at Washington State University where she earned her BA in Anthropology. She then moved to San Diego to teach preschool where she became fascinated with how children’s minds work and develop. She decided to pursue graduate school to gain further understanding of neural development. She gained a position at UCSD working under Dr. Katerina Semendeferi in the Laboratory of Human Comparative Neuroanatomy. Her research interests focus on primate neural development in the prefrontal cortex.