About – Isabel Crant

I am Isabel Crant, a fourth-year Architectural Engineering student specializing in Building Structures at the University of Waterloo

Fascinated by the built environment from childhood, I grew up designing and building structures in every shape imaginable; every Lego set, video game, and crafts project was an opportunity to build. This fascination led me to work as an architecture intern at seventeen years old and ultimately pursue architectural engineering, where I now regularly produce projects through Studio and other courses.

Since my first year at the University of Waterloo, I worked with Professor Eugene Kim¹‘s research group as an Undergraduate Research Assistant, developing machine-learning assessment tools for concrete buildings post-earthquakes and utility poles. I presented one of these research topics, “A Machine-Learning Based Tool for Assessing the Condition of Wood Utility Poles”, at the Canadian Society of Civil Engineers’ 2024 Annual Conference in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada, and continued to work on seismic vulnerability assessments and data-driven structural engineering methodologies since. Along with assisting graduate students with laboratory work, I am currently co-authoring a thesis related to braced timber frames and shape memory alloy fasteners.

Assisting the University of Waterloo’s Concrete Lab with cylinder pouring and testing as an Undergraduate Research Assistant, May 14, 2025.

I have been involved with Warrior Home²³, the University of Waterloo’s net-zero home design team, since 2021. As a Structural Working Member, I contributed to the construction of tiny homes in Halton Hills, Ontario, Canada. Additionally, I supported the structural retrofit design of a century-old home in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, which won $50,000 in funding at the US Department of Energy Solar Decathlon in 2022⁴. Later on as Structural Lead, I continued the retrofit of the century-old home and presented it at the US Department of Energy Solar Decathlon in Golden, Colorado, US, winning First in Engineering⁵. I also designed a two-story family home and row housing in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada.

Presenting at the US Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon in Golden, CO on behalf of Warrior Home where we won First in Engineering, April 24, 2023.

Starting out as an Architecture Intern for Maged Basilious Architect⁶, I designed large single-family homes and additional dwelling units. Later as a Project Coordinator for EllisDon⁷, I managed contractors through the finishing phase of 120m/395ft tall residential tower in Downtown Toronto⁸. As a Project Engineering Intern for John R. Hamalainen Engineering⁹, I wrote reports on the structural assessment of co-operative homes and helped design commercial building systems.

Eventually, I found my way to structural engineering, interning for Entuitive¹⁰ in both Toronto and New York City, Simpson Gumpertz & Heger¹¹ in the Greater Boston Area, and Mott MacDonald¹² in Toronto. There, I worked on a $100 million laboratory tower in California, conducted structural condition assessments of major airports and train stations, developed structural restoration details for parking garages and subway stations, produced internal programming tools and databases for project management and structural design, wrote proposals and feasibility reports, designed hung steel frames for hospitals, analyzed load capacity of historic buildings, designed large-span floor systems for vibrations, etc.