Brigitte Schaffner Senn grew up in England and Switzerland. She took violin, singing and piano lessons and was active in various orchestras and choirs in the canton of Aargau. She studied Classics (Latin, Greek and Classical Archaeology) at the University of Basel and graduated in 2000 with an interdisciplinary licentiate thesis on personifications in poetry and art.

Her professional experience and interests concern culture, education and science/humanities:

She was an undergraduate assistant at the Department of Latin Studies at the University of Basel and later a research assistant and editor at the multilingual lexicon LIMC (Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae). From 2004-2009, she was responsible for the section "Literature and Society" at Schweizer Jugend forscht.

Already during her studies, Brigitte Schaffner enjoyed communicating scientific content to a broad audience and gave many guided tours and workshops at the Antikenmuseum Basel, where she still worked as a freelancer in the Education and Outreach Department until 2025. From 2002-2010, she was also active as a museum educator at the Historisches Museum Basel. Together with other classics students, she designed a scenic guided tour on the life of women in antiquity, which she conducted for several years in Augusta Raurica and which was published as a book in 2001.

In 2004, Brigitte Schaffner completed an MAS in Arts Management and subsequently became a member of the management team at the Studienzentrum Kulturmanagement of the University of Basel. There, she organized part-time continuing education courses for cultural professionals from all over Switzerland. From 2014 to 2019, as co-director of studies, she was responsible for the redesign of the MAS in Arts Management and was head of the new CAS in Cultural Promotion and Law as well as the CAS in Innovation and Change.

In 2020, she joined the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis / FHNW, where she supported Thomas Drescher and the institute management as an assistant. Since September 2022, she has been a member of the collaborative management team of the Schola and is head of administration.

Since HS 23-24, she has also been teaching in the area of "Cultural Entrepreneurship" at the SCB. Her aim is to help students to plan their careers as independent musicians.