Paul Willis, professor of English, won the 2018 Indies Bronze, Essays and was an Indies Finalist for Autobiography and Memoir by Foreword Reviews for his collection of essays “To Build a Trail: Essays on Curiosity, Love & Wonder” (WordFarm, 2018). The Foreword Reviews, which honor the best books published by an independent press each year, previously awarded Willis the Indies Gold for “Bright Shoots of Everlastingness: Essays on Faith and the American Wild” (WordFarm, 2005). Willis, Santa Barbara poet laureate from 2011-13, has published numerous collections of poetry, including most recently “Little Rhymes for Lowly Plants” (White Violet Press, 2019). In 2010, he revised his first novel, “No Clock in the Forest,” and published it with three sequels in a single book, “The Alpine Tales.”

Nathan Huff The Stories We Tell Ourselves

A solo exhibition by Nathan Huff (art), “The Stories We Tell Ourselves,” appeared during August and September at the Sullivan Goss Gallery in Santa Barbara. His first solo exhibition with the gallery featured a diverse selection of paintings, including a monumental 14-foot-tall scroll painting and a variety of sculptures.

A grant of 26,600 node hours on the Stampede2 super- computer at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at the University of Texas at Austin will support research by Brandon Haines (chemistry) with Westmont students. He explores some new aspects of computational chemistry, his area of expertise, investigating how chemical reactions take place on the molecular level and considering strategies for how they can be controlled. The grant comes from the National Science Foundation’s Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) program.