Andrea Atkins, PEng (She/Her)

Andrea Atkins is an Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at the University of Waterloo, supporting the Architectural Engineering program. She has over five years of experience in structural design of buildings, collaborating with award-winning architects to design everything from high-end cottages to municipal community centres.

Prior to joining the Architectural Engineering team, Andrea Atkins was an adjunct instructor for the University of Waterloo School of Architecture, teaching structural design courses to architecture and engineering students. She has guest-lectured in building science capstone courses and provided technical advice for graduate architecture students at the University of Toronto.

Andrea Atkins does not have an active research program, nor does she accept graduate students or post doctoral fellows.

• Structural Design of Buildings

• Building Envelope Design

• Accessible Design

• Inter-Disciplinary Collaborative Design

• Structural Demolition Waste Re-Use

• Building Information Modelling for Construction Drawings

• 2018, Master of Engineering Structural Engineering, University of Toronto, Canada

• 2013, Master of Architecture Architecture, University of Waterloo, Canada

• 2010, Bachelor of Architectural Studies Architecture, University of Waterloo, Canada

• Awards for Teaching Work

• 2025 Building Technology Educators’ Society Emerging Faculty Award (BTES semi-annual award)

• 2024 Boyce Family Award for Teaching Excellence (Faculty of Engineering, University of Waterloo)

• 2020 Friend of Grads Award (Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, University of Waterloo)

• 2012 Amit and Meena Chakma Award for Exceptional Teaching by a Student (University of Waterloo)

• Awards for Consulting Work

• 2020 Ontario Association of Architects Design Excellence Award for Senate of Canada Building

• 2020 Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Design Excellence in Architecture for Senate of Canada Building

• 2020 National Trust’s Ecclesiastical Insurance Cornerstone Award for Senate of Canada Building

• 2019 Copper Development Association Inc. North American Copper in Architecture Awards for Senate of Canada Building

• 2018 Ontario WoodWorks! Institutional Wood Design Award

• Licensed Engineer, Professional Engineers Ontario (PEO) (2022- present)

• Building Technology Educators’ Society (2025-present)

• Building Science Association of Ontario (BSAO) (2022-present)

• American Society of Civil Engineering (ASCE) (2019-present) Structural Engineering Institute, Aesthetics in Design Technical Activities Division (2019-present)

• AE 100 - Concepts Studio
  • Taught in 2020, 2022, 2023, 2025
• AE 200 - Enclosure Design Studio
  • Taught in 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023
• AE 205 - Solid Mechanics 2
  • Taught in 2020, 2022, 2023, 2025
• AE 400 - Project 2 Studio
  • Taught in 2022, 2025
• AE 425 - Project 3 Studio
  • Taught in 2023
• AE 450 - Building Service Systems
  • Taught in 2025
• ARCH 362 - Steel and Concrete: Design, Structure and Construction
  • Taught in 2020
• ARCH 662 - Steel & Concrete: Design, Structure and Construction
  • Taught in 2020

* Only courses taught in the past 5 years are displayed.

• Daviau M., Roscetti D., Atkins A., Chen H., Lacroix D. Experimental Investigation of Durable Wood Panels for the Design of Relocatable Modular Buildings. 2024 CSCE Annual Conference, Niagara Falls, 2024, pp. 12.

• Liu, M., Atkins, A., & Kennington, A. (2024). Cultural Competence in Engineering Education. Proceedings of the Canadian Engineering Education Association (CEEA). https://doi.org/10.24908/pceea.2023.17127

• Al Humidi, S., Sloan, A., Atkins, A., Al-Hammoud, R. (2023, June), How Diversifying / Updating the Teaching Team Has Positively Affected Teaching Paper presented at 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Baltimore, Maryland. 10.18260/1-2—43357

• Al-Hammoud, R., & Jazouli, S., & Atkins, A. (2023, June), Embedding Equity in an Undergraduate Introductory Course through Experiential Learning Paper presented at 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Baltimore, Maryland. 10.18260/1-2—43261

• Atkins, A., & McNeil, A., & Al-Hammoud, R. (2023, June), The Effect of the Application of Feedback and Reflection on an Iterative Student Design Challenge Paper presented at 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Baltimore, Maryland. 10.18260/1-2—44444

• Fierro J., Chen H., Hull T., Atkins A., Lacroix D. Case study on a large-scale timber academic building designed to address current industry challenges. 2023 WCTE, Oslo, Norway, 2023, pp. 10.

• Roscetti D., Atkins A., Lacroix D. Pre-fabrication and modular construction – A potential solution to affordable and temporary housing in Ontario. 2022 CSCE Annual Conference, Whistler, British Columbia, 2022, pp. 11.

• Atkins, A., Aijazi, A. Experiencing architectural design through an asynchronous audio tour of the University of Waterloo Campus. Canadian Design Workshop, University of Waterloo, December 2022

• Atkins, A., Aijazi, A. Design Studio as an alternate course format for Fourth Year Capstone Projects. Canadian Design Workshop, University of Waterloo, December 2022

• Liu, M.C., Atkins, A. (2023). Image Content Analysis of Perceived Race and Gender on Websites of Top Accredited Engineering Schools in Canada. In: Walbridge, S., et al. Proceedings of the Canadian Society of Civil Engineering Annual Conference 2021. CSCE 2021. Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering, vol 239. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0503-2_25

• Lecturer inspires graduating students to keep options open