Linnea graduated Magna Cum Laude from College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts with a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and Religious Studies.

After graduating from Holy Cross, she volunteered for a year with the Jesuit Volunteers Corps and was placed at the Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project (ILAP) in Portland, Maine, where she worked in their Forms Clinic with refugees and asylum seekers. Linnea most recently worked at the Political Asylum Immigration Representation (PAIR) Project in Boston.