Seibert Quimby Duntley was born in Bushnell, Illinois on October 2, 1911. He received an SB in physics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1933. Duntley received an MS degree from California Institute of Technology in 1935 and an Sc.D. in physics from MIT in 1939. While at MIT, Duntley met and worked with Karl Taylor Compton, Harold Eugene Edgerton, and many other prominent physicists. Duntley's primary interest was in applied physics particularly the optics of turbid media.