Pamela Perniss studied General Linguistics and Comparative Literature at the Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen and the Universität zu Köln, and obtained an MA in Linguistics at the Universität zu Köln.

Her PhD research was carried out within the Language and Cognition group (headed by Stephen C. Levinson) at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, culminating in a dissertation on "Space and Iconicity in German Sign Language (DGS)"

She is currently a postdoctoral research fellow on a Marie Curie stipend at the Deafness, Cognition, and Language (DCAL) Research Centre (University College London) with Professor Gabriella Vigliocco, working on a project about "The linguistic and cognitive processing of space in signed and spoken language".

She is also involved in the NWO-funded VIDI project "Relations between modality and language structure: Insights from comparisons of sign languages and gestures" (PI Dr. Asli Özyürek) at the Radboud University Nijmegen and the MPI for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen.