Professor Arturo Tena-Colunga earned a bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering from the Faculty of Engineering of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) in 1986. He has a Master of Science (MSc. 1989) and Doctor in Philosophy (Ph.D. 1992) degrees in Structural Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

He was the Coordinator of the Structural Program for Centro de Investigación Sísmica (Seismic Research Center) of Javier Barros Sierra Foundation from 1992 to 1998. Since October 1998, he has been a Full Professor of the Materials Department at Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (UAM) Azcapotzalco Campus, where he served as the Coordinator of the Graduate Program in Structural Engineering from June 2011 to January 2016.

In his teaching and research activities, he has directed to date more than 60 thesis of bachelor, master and doctorate degrees, in which more than 65 students have been graduated. He is the author and co-author of more than 400 research papers and technical reports, of which more than 140 of them are research papers published in indexed journals. To date, these research papers have been the subject of more than 2,820 citations type A (citations where none of the cited authors are coauthors of the citing paper).

He has been a member of the National System for Researchers of Mexico (Sistema Nacional de Investigadores, SNI) since 1993. He has been a Member of the Academy of Engineering of Mexico since November 2000. He was Vice President and President for the Mexican Society of Earthquake Engineering (Sociedad Mexicana de Ingeniería Sísmica, SMIS) in the period 2002-2005.

He is part of the group of professionals in charge of revising and updating the Manual of Civil Works published by the Federal Electricity Commission (Comisión Federal de Electricidad, CFE) of Mexico, specifically in the chapters for the Seismic Design of Buildings and the Design of Structures with Base Isolation. He is member of the subcommittee on the Supplementary Technical Standards for the Design and Construction of Masonry Structures for the Construction Building Code of Mexico City since 1998 to date.

He is the author of the book Análisis de Estructuras con Métodos Matriciales (Analysis of Structures with Matricial Methods). He was Editor of the Mexican journal Revista de Ingeniería Sísmica (Journal of Earthquake Engineering) from 1997 to 2006. He is member of the Editorial Board of several indexed journals published in Spanish and English languages. He has conducted more than 150 reviews in structural engineering and earthquake engineering topics for journals belonging to the Journal of Citation Reports (JCR).

He has been guest speaker of several technical societies and universities in Mexico, the United States, Germany, Japan, Greece, Czech Republic, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela, Bolivia, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala.

Professor Tena-Colunga has been the subject of several academic distinctions, among them: a) the Gabino Barreda Medal of UNAM (1987), b) Winner of EERI´s Fourth Student Paper Competition (1992), c) Emilio Rosenblueth Chair at UAM-A (October 1998 to January 2000), d) the National Awards of the College of Civil Engineers of Mexico (Colegio de Ingenieros Civiles de México, CICM): Miguel A. Urquijo (2002) and José A. Cuevas (2015) medals for the best article in Civil Engineering, and Javier Barros Sierra medal (2008) for best book published in Civil Engineering, and e) the Award for Excellence in Teaching by Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (2010).