Robert Turnbull

Senior Research Data Specialist
Melbourne Data Analytics Platform
The University of Melbourne

Bio

Robert Turnbull previously worked for Monash Cluster Computing where he was responsible for developing the Geodynamics modelling program Underworld. In 2020, he completed his PhD using Bayesian phylogenetics to study the transmission history of Arabic manuscript texts from the Middle Ages. He is now a Senior Research Data Specialist at the Melbourne Data Analytics Platform where he collaborates with researchers across the University of Melbourne in data intensive research projects. During this time Robert has developed Deep Learning models which have won international academic competitions in reading Greek papyri and interpreting medical imaging.
Rob visiting St Catherine's Monastery.

Book

In October, 2024, Robert's book Codex Sinaiticus Arabicus and Its Family: A Bayesian Approach was published by Brill.

Arabic versions of the New Testament have been overlooked for too long. The Sinai New Finds of 1975 unearthed Codex Sinaiticus Arabicus which preserves an Arabic translation of the Gospels differing markedly from the Majority Text. Here Robert Turnbull undertakes a wide-ranging study of this version, discovering many lectionary manuscripts with the same text. Several open-access datasets are made available. Bayesian phylogenetics and other computational techniques are used to draw insights into the transmission history of this version and its place in the wider New Testament textual tradition. This Arabic version will be indispensable in future textual scholarship on the Gospels.

Turnbull, Robert. Codex Sinaiticus Arabicus and Its Family: A Bayesian Approach. Vol. 66. New Testament Tools, Studies and Documents. Published: October 24, 2024. Brill, 2025. ISBN: 978-90-04-68580-2. DOI: 10.1163/9789004704619. URL: https://brill.com/display/title/69300.

Book Thumbnail

Book Launch!

The book will be launched at 3pm on February 13, 2025 at Melbourne Connect. You can join in person or on Zoom. Book tickets here: https://events.humanitix.com/book-launch-codex-sinaiticus-arabicus-and-its-family.

An afternoon tea will be provided by the Melbourne Data Analytics Platform for those who attend in person.

Book Launch

Projects

Early Modern Women Translators in Europe (15th–18th c.)

2020
CI: Prof Véronique Duché, School of Languages and Linguistics, Faculty of Arts

Living with COVID

2020
CI: Rachel Fensham, School of Culture and Communication, Faculty of Arts

Unlocking published metagenomes as a source of information for microbial eukaryotes

2020
CI: A/Prof Heroen Verbruggen, School of BioSciences, Faculty of Science

Plain Of Jars Archaeological Project

2020
CI: Louise Shewan, School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Faculty of Science

Visualising networks and mobilities in the architecture profession

2021
CI: Professor Julie Willis, Dean Melbourne School of Design, Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning

Accelerating large dimensional stochastic simulation models

2021
CI: Dr Aaron Dodd, Centre of Excellence for Biosecurity Risk Analysis (CEBRA), Faculty of Science

Associate: Encoding manuscripts as primary research objects

2021
CI: A/Prof Nick Thieberger, School of Languages and Linguistics, Faculty of Arts

Longitudinal Mapping of Residential Building Projects in Victoria

2021
CI: Dr Vidal Paton-Cole, Prof Robert Crawford, Melbourne School of Design, Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning

Artificial intelligence-based image enhancement and segmentation

2022
CI: Wenbin Fei, School of Electrical, Mechanical and Infrastructure Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology

Unlocking diverse herbarium specimen associated data to accelerate biodiversity and evolutionary research

2022
CI: Jo Birch, Senior Lecturer - Herbarium Curator, School of BioSciences, Faculty of Science

Screening whole genome sequencing datasets for the Eukaryome of globally distributed kelp species

2022
CI: Trevor Bringloe, School of Biosciences, Faculty of Science

Infectious disease genomics: from database to phylodynamics

2022
CI: Sebastian Duchene, Melbourne School of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences

Increasing comparative genomic resources for amphibians

2023
CI: Dr Tiffany Kosch, Veterinary Biosciences, Faculty of Science

Infrastructure and methods for forensic audio transcription experiments

2023
CI: Professor Helen Fraser, School of Languages and Linguistics, Faculty of Arts

Forecasting risks to savanna ecosystems in northern Australia under global change

2023
CI: Dr Rebecca Runting, School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Faculty of Science

Geometric deep learning methods for bacterial taxonomic classification

2024
CI: Dr Wytamma Wirth, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences

AI-based denoising of phase-contrast CT for breast cancer imaging

2024
CI: Associate Professor Timur Gureyev, School of Physics, Faculty of Science

Using deep neural network models to aid in the decipherment of Linear A

2024
CI: Dr Brent Davis, Historical and Philosophical Studies, Faculty of Arts

Determining sources for Nicholas Trevet's commentary on Livy

2024
CI: Dr Andrew Turner, School of Historical and Philisophical Studies, Faculty of Arts

Enhancing language technology for Anatolian languages

2025
CI: Dr Ekaterina Vylomova, School of Computing and Information Systems, Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology

A microscopy image generator for AI image segmentation model training

2025
CI: A/Prof Vijay Rajagopal, School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology

Machine learning-driven discovery of virulence factors in fungal pathogens

2025
CI: Dr Carlos Santos-Martin, J.N. Peters Fellow, School of BioSciences, Faculty of Science

Enhancing student communication using speech technology and digital tools

2025
CI: Dr Olga Maxwell, School of Languages and Linguistics, Faculty of Arts

Publications

Turnbull, Robert. Codex Sinaiticus Arabicus and Its Family: A Bayesian Approach. Vol. 66. New Testament Tools, Studies and Documents. Brill, 2025. DOI: 10.1163/9789004704619. Show More
Turnbull, Robert, and Simon Mutch. “Separating Lungs in CT Scans for Improved COVID19 Detection.” In Proceedings of the IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR) Workshops, 5216–22, 2024. Show More
Turnbull, Robert, and Evelyn Mannix. “Detecting and Recognizing Characters in Greek Papyri with YOLOv8, DeiT and SimCLR.” International Journal on Document Analysis and Recognition (IJDAR), November 2024. DOI: 10.1007/s10032-024-00504-8. Show More
Wirth, Wytamma, Simon Mutch, and Robert Turnbull. “Snk: A Snakemake CLI and Workflow Management System.” Journal of Open Source Software 9, no. 103 (2024): 7410. DOI: 10.21105/joss.07410. Show More
Shaban, Babak, Maria Mar del Quiroga, Robert Turnbull, Edoardo Tescari, Kim-Anh Lê Cao, and Heroen Verbruggen. “MetaGenePipe: An Automated, Portable Pipeline for Contig-Based Functional and Taxonomic Analysis.” Journal of Open Source Software 8, no. 82 (2023): 4851. DOI: 10.21105/joss.04851. Show More
Turnbull, Robert. “Using a 3D ResNet for Detecting the Presence and Severity of COVID-19 from CT Scans.” In Computer Vision – ECCV 2022 Workshops, edited by Leonid Karlinsky, Tomer Michaeli, and Ko Nishino, 663–76. Cham: Springer Nature, 2023. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-25082-8_45. Show More
Salazar, Vinícius W, Babak Shaban, Maria del Mar Quiroga, Robert Turnbull, Edoardo Tescari, Vanessa Rossetto Marcelino, Heroen Verbruggen, and Kim-Anh Lê Cao. “Metaphor—A Workflow for Streamlined Assembly and Binning of Metagenomes.” GigaScience 12 (July 2023): giad055. DOI: 10.1093/gigascience/giad055. Show More
McCollum, Joey, and Robert Turnbull. “Using Bayesian Phylogenetics to Infer Manuscript Transmission History.” Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, December 2023, fqad089. DOI: 10.1093/llc/fqad089. Show More
Thompson, Karen M., Robert Turnbull, Emily Fitzgerald, and Joanne L. Birch. “Identification of Herbarium Specimen Sheet Components from High-Resolution Images Using Deep Learning.” Ecology and Evolution 13, no. 8 (2023): e10395. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.10395. Show More
Montoro, Peter, and Robert Turnbull. “Two Way Traffic on the Transmissional Highway? Considering Chrysostom’s Exegesis as an Explanation for the Reading of GA 104 in Romans 2:26.” In Pen, Print, and Pixels: Advances in Textual Criticism in the Digital Era, 189–201. Hendrickson, 2023. Show More
Turnbull, Robert. “Lung Segmentation Enhances COVID-19 Detection.” In 2023 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing Workshops (ICASSPW), 1–5, 2023. DOI: 10.1109/ICASSPW59220.2023.10193492. Show More
Turnbull, Robert, and Jonathan Garber. “Ausdex: A Python Package for Adjusting Australian Dollars for Inflation.” Journal of Open Source Software 7, no. 75 (2022): 4212. DOI: 10.21105/joss.04212. Show More
Wirth, Wytamma, Simon Mutch, Robert Turnbull, and Sebastian Duchene. “Phytest: Quality Control for Phylogenetic Analyses.” Bioinformatics 38, no. 22 (October 2022): 5124–25. DOI: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btac664. Show More
McCollum, Joey, and Robert Turnbull. “Teiphy: A Python Package for Converting TEI XML Collations to NEXUS and Other Formats.” Journal of Open Source Software 7, no. 80 (2022): 4879. DOI: 10.21105/joss.04879. Show More
Crawford, R H, V Paton-Cole, R. Turnbull, E Fitzgerald, A Michalewicz, and J Garber. “Trends in Residential Sustainability Measures in the State of Victoria.” IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science 1101, no. 2 (November 2022): 022018. DOI: 10.1088/1755-1315/1101/2/022018. Show More
Paton-Cole, V, R H Crawford, R. Turnbull, E Fitzgerald, A Michalewicz, and J Garber. “Trends in Residential Building Materials in the State of Victoria.” IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science 1101, no. 4 (November 2022): 042022. DOI: 10.1088/1755-1315/1101/4/042022. Show More
Montoro, Peter, and Robert Turnbull. “Revising the Repetitions: The Relative Textual Stability of Repeated Patristic Citations as a Window into the Transmission History of Patristic Exegesis — Chrysostom’s Homilies on Romans as an Initial Test Case.” Sacris Erudiri LX (2021): 69–99. DOI: 10.1484/J.SE.5.128776. Show More
Alhagh, Leila, Merav Carmeli, G. Geltner, John Henry, Stephen J. Joyce, Janice Pinder, and Robert Turnbull. “Inventorying ‘Pre-Modern’ Manuscripts in Victorian Public and Private Collections: Expanding the Cultural Archive.” Script & Print 45, no. 3 (2021): 148–65. Show More
Quenette, S. M., L. Moresi, P. D. Sunter, L. Hodkinson, A. Lo, R. Hassan, B. Appelbe, and R. Turnbull. “From StGermain to Underworld: Enabling Community-Based Code Development in Geodynamics.” In AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts, 2005:IN21C–1187, 2005. Show More
Freeman, J., D. R. Stegman, W. P. Schellart, L. Moresi, D. A. May, and R. Turnbull. “Three-Dimensional Numerical Models of Subduction and Subduction-Induced Mantle Flow.” In AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts, 2004:T21B–0534, 2004. Show More
Stegman, D. R., J. Freeman, W. P. Schellart, L. Moresi, D. May, and R. Turnbull. “Reevaluating Plate Driving Forces from 3-D Models of Subduction.” In AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts, 2004:T31A–1270, 2004. Show More
Farrington, Rebecca, Louis Moresi, Steve Quenette, Robert Turnbull, and Patrick Sunter. “Geodynamic Benchmarking Tests in HPC.” In Australian Partnership for Advanced Computing Conference, 2005. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.3885977. Show More
Stegman, D.R., L. Moresi, R. Turnbull, J. Giordani, P. Sunter, A. Lo, and S Quenette. “GLucifer: Next Generation Visualization Framework for High-Performance Computational Geodynamics.” Visual Geosciences 13, no. 1 (2008): 71–84. DOI: 10.1007/s10069-008-0010-2. Show More
Turnbull, Robert. “Arabic Gospel Lectionaries at Sinai.” Collectanea Christiana Orientalia 16 (2019): 131–66. DOI: 10.21071/cco.v16i.14609. Show More
Turnbull, Robert. “Can Manuscript Headings Prove That There Were Arabic Gospels before the Qurʾān?” In Scribal Habits in Near Eastern Manuscript Traditions, edited by George Kiraz and Sabine Schmidtke, 291–308. Gorgias, 2021. DOI: 10.31826/9781463241964-016. Show More
Turnbull, Robert. “The Textual Character of Codex Sinaiticus Arabicus and Its Family.” In At One Remove: The Text of the New Testament in Early Translations and Quotations. Papers from the Eleventh Birmingham Colloquium on the Textual Criticism of the New Testament, edited by Hugh A.G. Houghton and Peter Montoro, 87–106. Gorgias, 2020. DOI: 10.31826/9781463241100-007. Show More
Turnbull, Robert. “Verse Metrics: Analysing Manuscript Families Using a String Alignment Algorithm with a Test Case in the Arabic Gospels.” In New Approaches to Textual and Image Analysis in Early Jewish and Christian Studies, edited by Garrick V. Allen, Paul Dilley, Sara Schulthess, and Peter Philips, 146–69. Digital Biblical Studies. Brill, 2022. DOI: 10.1163/9789004515116_009. Show More
Quenette, Steve, Louis Moresi, Patrick Sunter, L. Hodkinson, R. Hassan, A. Lo, B Appelbe, and Robert Turnbull. “Supporting Community Based Computational Code Development.” In Proceedings of the APAC Conference and Exhibition on Advanced Computing, Grid Applications and EResearch, 2005. Show More

Preprints

Turnbull, Robert, Damien Mannion, Jessie Wells, Kabir Manandhar Shrestha, Attila Balogh, and Rebecca Runting. “Themeda: Predicting Land Cover Change Using Deep Learning.” SSRN, 2024. DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.4681094. Show More
Turnbull, Robert, Emily Fitzgerald, Karen Thompson, and Joanne L. Birch. “Hespi: A Pipeline for Automatically Detecting Information from Herbarium Specimen Sheets.” ArXiv, 2024. DOI: 10.48550/arXiv.2410.08740. Show More
Turnbull, Robert, Jacob L. Steenwyk, Simon J. Mutch, Pelle Scholten, Vinícius W. Salazar, Joanne L. Birch, and Heroen Verbruggen. “Orthoflow: Phylogenomic Analysis and Diagnostics with One Command.” Research Square, 2023. DOI: 10.21203/rs.3.rs-3699210/v2. Show More

Acknowledgements

Carlson, Stephen C., ed. Papias of Hierapolis Exposition of Dominical Oracles: The Fragments, Testimonia, and Reception of a Second-Century Commentator. Oxford University Press, 2021. Show More
Moresi, L., S.M. Quenette, V. Lemiale, C. Mériaux, B. Appelbe, and H.-B. Mühlhaus. “Computational Approaches to Studying Non-Linear Dynamics of the Crust and Mantle.” Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors 163, no. 1–4 (2007): 69–82. DOI: 10.1016/j.pepi.2007.06.009. Show More
Quenette, S.M., L. Moresi, P. Sunter, and B. Appelbe. “Explaining StGermain: An Aspect Oriented Environment for Building Extensible Computational Mechanics Modeling Software,” 2007. DOI: 10.1109/IPDPS.2007.370400. Show More
Quenette, S.M., B Appelbe, M. Gurnis, L. Hodkinson, L. Moresi, and P. Sunter. “An Investigation into Design for Code Maintainability in HPC.” ANZIAM Journal 46, no. E (2004): C1001–C1016. DOI: 10.21914/anziamj.v46i0.1003. Show More
Shewan, Louise, Richard Armstrong, Dougald O’Reilly, Siân Halcrow, Nancy Beavan, and Tep Sokha. “Isotopic Insights into the Jar-and-Coffin Mortuary Ritual of the Cardamom Mountains, Cambodia.” Antiquity 94, no. 378 (2020): 1575–91. DOI: 10.15184/aqy.2020.201. Show More
Stegman, D. R., J. Freeman, W. P. Schellart, L. Moresi, and D. May. “Influence of Trench Width on Subduction Hinge Retreat Rates in 3-D Models of Slab Rollback.” Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems 7, no. 3 (2006). Show More
Aetius. Placita. Edited by Jaap Mansfeld and David Runia. Loeb Classical Library. Harvard University Press, 2023. Show More
Muir, Bernard J. The Cædmon Manuscript: The Beginnings of English Religious Poetry, I. Anthem, 2023. Show More

Competitions

Achievements in academic competitions.

2nd COV19D Competition

European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV) 2022

AI-enabled Medical Image Analysis – Digital Pathology & Radiology/COVID19

COVID-19 Presence Detection: Runner-up

3rd COV19D Competition

IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing (ICASSP) 2023

AI-enabled Medical Image Analysis Workshop and Covid-19 Diagnosis Competition (AI-MIA-COV19D)

COVID-19 Severity Prediction: First Place
COVID-19 Presence Detection: Second Place

Detection and Recognition of Greek Letters on Papyri

ICDAR 2023: International Conference on Document Analysis and Recognition

Competition on Detection and Recognition of Greek Letters on Papyri

Character Classification: First Place
Character Detection: Second Place

4th COV19D Competition

IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition 2024

Domain adaptation, Explainability, Fairness in AI for Medical Image Analysis (DEF-AI-MIA) workshop

COVID-19 Detection: First Place
Domain Adaptation: Second Place

Software

Robert has developed his own business in designing software for iOS and Android and has several apps available for download in four program suites: Bible Vocab, Vocab Pro, Mesha, and Film Note. These apps have been downloaded more than 140,000 times. Bible Vocab is widely regarded as one of the premier biblical language apps available.

Professor Robert Plummer (Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) has said: ‘Who could imagine that a Greek New Testament vocabulary app with this much power and flexibility even existed? I’m amazed at the intuitive design and ability to customize vocabulary acquisition to particular sections of text. I’m confident that this vocabulary app will help thousands of pastors and students read the Greek New Testament with greater fluency, confidence, and understanding. I enthusiastically endorse it.’

He is currently developing other applications for learning the vocabulary from the Quran, the Peshitta, and the Van Dyck Arabic Bible.

Bible Vocab Logo

Students

Joey McCollum
PhD Student
Read more →
Emily Tour
PhD Student
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Yuhao (Andy) Tong
PhD Student
Read more →
Jacob Cumming
PhD Student
Read more →

Storytelling

In a previous life, Rob worked as a Biblical Storytellermemorizing Bible passages and performing them theatrically. This has included performing in English, Arabic, and Eastern Arabic Sign Language. He has performed extensively in Australia, including in the Melbourne Fringe Festival and at Parliament House. He produced extended single-person shows of John’s Gospel, Luke’s Gospel and The Book of Revelation as well as many shorter ones such as: Esther, Jonah, Ruth, Paul’s Third Missionary Journey, Samuel, Pentecost and 2 Timothy. Over the years he has memorized and performed almost 12% of the Bible, including about a third of the New Testament.
Rob performing.

Here is a playlist of some of his storytellings in Engligh and Arabic: