Prof. Jordaan was born and raised in South Africa where she has lived all her life except for periodic research
visits in various European countries as a visiting researcher. She is married with two adult sons. “I have always
been interested in Mathematics and Education and by becoming an academic I had the possibility to combine these two interests.”

She is a full professor in Mathematics in the Department of Decision Sciences at the University of South Africa as well as the part-time Executive Director of the South African Mathematics Foundation. She served the academic community as elected President of the South African Mathematical Society from 2016-2019. Her research interests are Special Functions and Orthogonal polynomials. She hold an NRF B rating and was awarded a Royal Society Newton Advanced Fellowship for her research in these areas. She currently serves as chairperson of the National Research Foundation Evaluation and Ratings panels, as Chairperson of the DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence in Mathematical and Statistical Sciences, and Advisory Board member of the National Graduate Academy for Mathematical and Statistical Sciences.

Prof. Jordaan has a PhD in Mathematics from the the University of the Witwatersrand.

In October 2023 , she became a member of the AIMS South Africa Council.