After completing her BA in Comparative Literature at the University of Chicago, where she concentrated on German and English literature, Pricilla Layne spent three years in Germany. As an exchange student, she studied at the Freie Universität and Humboldt Universität in Berlin. She was a Fulbright TA teaching English at the Werner-von-Siemens Gymnasium in Zehlendorf and received a scholarship from the Study Foundation of the Berlin Parliament, which allowed her to conduct a qualitative analysis of the leftist skinhead scene in Berlin/Brandenburg. During her three years in Germany, she also gained some professional experience during two internships: one with the Ebersbach publication house in Berlin and one working as a translator with the Deutsche Welle in Bonn. In 2005, she continued her studies at the University of California at Berkeley where she received her MA in 2006 and her PhD in 2011. In fall 2011, she joined the faculty of the Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.