Howell was born in Warrenton, North Carolina in 1955. Howell was one of six children raised by his mother Virginia Talley and his father William Howell, a cement finisher. He was raised in
Palmer Springs, Virginia, attending Roanoke Elementary School and later Park View High School in
South Hill, Virginia. After high school, Howell attended Davidson College in
Davidson, North Carolina, on a scholarship. His junior year of college was spent in an exchange program at
Howard University in Washington D.C. Following his graduation from Davidson College, Howell began graduate studies in experimental nuclear physics at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. There, he worked in the lab of Richard Lawrence Walter, with his doctoral studies culminating in his dissertation on the neutron scattering cross sections of silicon and sulfur entitled "Neutron scattering from 28Si and 32S: cross sections and analyzing powers from 8 to 40 MeV". After completing his PhD, Howell remained in Durham and worked for a year as a
postdoctoral fellow at the Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory (TUNL). == Career ==