Elizabeth Tucker Kinney was born on January 5, 1904, the daughter of Asa Kinney, professor of Plant Science at Mount Holyoke College. She attended Holyoke High School and graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 1924. In 1926 she received an M.S. from Washington University. She studied at the University of Pittsburgh, and spent several summers at Woods Hole doing research. In 1927 she began studying at Columbia University. At the same time she began working at Washington Square College. In 1929 she took up a teaching post in zoology at Barnard College. She married Leonard G. Worley in 1931, and they had two children, Leonora and Jeannette. In 1940 she received a Ph.D. from Columbia.