Matt Fernandes and his team at SEAS look to Nature for examples of quality engineering, and one of their investigations has led to innovation in design. The skeletal structure of the Venus Flower sea sponge (a.k.a. glass sponge) can bear extraordinary weight. Fernandes hopes to apply this unique structure to next-generation architecture and engineering design. Image: Belmont Media Center
**Matheus C. Fernandes** is a Ph.D. candidate, Harvard University in the Harvard John A. Paulson School for Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the Harvard Institute for Applied Computational Science.