Dr Cerene Rathilal holds a PhD in Mathematics from the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal (UKZN). She is a Pure Mathematician and is currently a lecturer at the Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics at the University of Johannesburg (UJ). Her PhD research focused on the area of Pointfree Topology. She is still active within this area and works in General Topology and Lattice Theory.

Dr Rathilal completed her undergraduate and postgraduate education at UKZN. She received annual merit scholarships from UKZN, was awarded a Mandela Rhodes Scholarship to complete her MSc and the Canon Collins Scholars’ Scholar award for her PhD studies. She was also a recipient of the NRF Scarce skills scholarship throughout her postgraduate studies and was invited as a graduate PhD in Mathematics to attend the 6^th Heidelberg Laureate Forum in Germany. Dr Rathilal taught courses in Operations research, Business Mathematics and Mathematics for Biology at UKZN from 2015 until 2019. Since joining UJ in 2019, she has taught Multivariable Calculus and Honours in Set theory and Logic. She is a UJ Faculty of Science representative at the College of Business and Economics and is currently the Junior Focus Area coordinator of Algebra and Topology at the CoE-MaSS which is based at WITS University.

Community engagement is also one of Dr Rathilal passions. In 2013, she created a programme called the Mathematics Development Initiative (MDI), which offered free mathematics tuition to grade 12 learners at schools in Phoenix and Umkoomaas until 2018, and later involved a mentoring programme for undergraduate students which ran from 2016 to 2019. She joined the Rotary Club of Phoenix in 2018 and is now a member of the Northcliff Rotary club since joining UJ. At UJ, she contributes to the Soweto Science Centers Grade 10 – Grade 12 mathematics lessons by creating online content. Dr Rathilal received the 2020 UJ Faculty of Science award for excellence in community engagement and is currently focused on new projects.