Brenna McWhorter graduated from the CSU Department of Art and Art History with her BA and went on to get her MA from Syracuse University in the Graduate Program in Italian Renaissance Art, where her research was fully supported by Syracuse University's Florence Fellowship. She lived and conducted research in Florence, Italy while completing her master's, where she also volunteered as a tour guide at the Cathedral of Santa Croce. Her research focuses on the influence of Renaissance astral magic on decorated vault programs. She has experience in galleries and museums and has presented in symposia both in the US and abroad.

Areas of research interest include: early modern astrology, astral magic, vault decoration, Savonarola and art at the end of the quattrocento, Humanism and the visual arts, court patronage, and cross-cultural influences in the early modern period.