Sylvia Holla graduated cum laude from the Research Master Social Sciences at the UvA in 2010. During her studies she engaged herself with several topics, such as attractiveness, sexual identity, the body and the body beautiful. She wrote her Master thesis on Performing sex. An ethnographic study on teenage sexual identity construction (2010). She has worked as a Junior lecturer, teaching courses on sociological theory – the classics as well as more contemporary theories. She also conducted research on aesthetic bodily standards amongst teenagers, as a so-called Academy Assistant, commissioned by the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences (KNAW).