 As a result of his father's employment by the United States Forest Service, Starker Leopold spent some of his youth in New Mexico; when his father began teaching at the University of Wisconsin, the family moved to Madison.He received his B.S.from the University of Wisconsin in 1936, and then studied at the Yale Forestry School before transferring to the University of California, Berkeley, where he received his Ph.D. in Zoology in 1944.