Whitley College has a long tradition of appointing faculty with research experience, usually gained through their own doctoral level study, and who have gained research active status.
Our research active faculty members supervise a range of HDR students in the following areas:
Hebrew Bible, New Testament, Christian Doctrine, Missiology, Contextual Theology, Indigenous theology, Practical theology, Pastoral theology, Christian Spirituality, Faith Development.
Supervision of our research PhD., MPhil, and Minor Theses projects is being undertaken by our Whitley College faculty, our wonderful honorary research associates, and research faculty from other Universities and College.
Professor Mark Brett
Professor of Hebrew Bible
Professor Mark Brett teaches Hebrew Bible and ethics. He was raised in Papua New Guinea, which has yielded a lifelong interest in the cultural contexts of education and biblical studies. His PhD on hermeneutical philosophy was published as Biblical Criticism in Crisis? (Cambridge University Press, 1991), and his subsequent research has focused on ethnicity and postcolonial studies. During 2005–2008, he also worked for an Aboriginal organization in developing new frameworks for the negotiation of native title claims within the state of Victoria. He is a member of Brunswick Baptist Church.
Professor Brett’s research interests are focused in the areas of colonialism, political theologies, intercultural studies, and the Hebrew Bible.
Mark is the former General Editor of the Journal of Biblical Literature and among his recent publications are Locations of God: Political Theology in the Hebrew Bible (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2019).
Rev Associate Professor Jason Goroncy
Associate Professor of Christian Thought and Doctrine
Jason is an ordained minister with the Baptist Union of Victoria and the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand, and teaches in the area of systematic theology at Whitley College. He previously served as a pastor in Baptist and Uniting churches, as a lecturer at the Koh Lo Traw Theological College (Thailand), as a lecturer and Dean of the Knox Centre for Ministry and Leadership in New Zealand, and as Chair of the Church and Society Working Group for the World Communion of Reformed Churches.
Dr Goroncy’s research interests are focused in the areas of theological anthropology, theology and the arts, theological ethics, public theology, Reformed traditions, death, P.T. Forsyth, and the doctrines of God and creation. He has most recently contributed ‘Barth on Sanctification’ in The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Karl Barth, edited by George Hunsinger and Keith L. Johnson (Chichester, UK: Blackwell, 2020).
Darrell grew up in the Isle of Man and was ordained to Baptist ministry in 1989. Educated at London School of Theology, the University of Birmingham and the University of Gloucestershire. His ThD addresses Baptist church membership and missiology. He has been involved in full-time theological education since 2007 with lecturing experience at Bristol Baptist College; the International Baptist Theological Seminary, Prague; Redcliffe College, UK; Tabor College, Adelaide; Morling College, Sydney; and a number of US Universities and Seminaries.
Darrell’s ministry experience includes pastoral, denominational, and ecumenical roles. Through these roles he has built considerable experience at the intersection of research, missiology, and theological education.
Rev Associate Professor Jackson’s research interests are focused in the areas of missiology, migration and diaspora, ethnicity, identity, and nationalism, and Orthodox-Evangelical encounter.
Among his recent publications is ‘Re-placing mission: exilic options reconsidered’ in Not in Kansas anymore: Christian faith in a post-Christian world edited by Mike Frost, Darrell Jackson, and David Starling (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publications, 2020).
Associate Professor Robyn Wrigley-Carr
Associate Professor in Pastoral and Spiritual Care
Robyn teaches in the area of Pastoral and Spiritual Care at Whitley College. She is also Program Director of Spiritual Care for the University of Divinity in the School of Professional Practice. She has been involved in theological education for over two decades and lectured at Alphacrucis University College for 8 years before joining Whitley. As well as being an academic, Robyn leads retreats in Australia and England and is a spiritual director. She attends Northside Baptist Church.
As well as writing several books, including the Archbishop of York’s Advent Book for 2021, she has written many articles and has presented on Renovaré podcasts and ABC Radio’s ‘God Forbid’ program.
Robyn is on the Executive Committee for the International Network for the Study of Spirituality and is on the Editorial Board and Book Reviews Editor for the Journal for the Study of Spirituality. She is also Adjunct Associate Professor for the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture in Canberra (Charles Sturt University).
Rev Dr Titus Olorunnisola
Interim Director of Research
Titus identifies as a theological anthropologist with a background in missiology and contextual theology. He was educated in Nigeria, the Netherlands, and Australia. He was a former Commonwealth Scholar on the International Postgraduate Research Scholarship (IPRS) at the University of Divinity between 2013 and 2016.
Titus’ research expertise is in qualitative and quantitative research design. He has successfully designed and co-delivered qualitative research projects focusing on the inclusion and integration of members of migrant communities in Victoria.
Titus sits on the board of Action Research Centre Ltd – a not-for-profit organisation that combines research with advocacy for social change on issues affecting migrant communities – as its founding CEO and Principal Researcher.
His research strengths lie in the areas of faith and development, new religious movements and migration, culture, Pentecostalism, and contextual theologies. He is particularly interested in how theology addresses social (and human) concerns in the postmodern era.
Dr Megan Turton
Lecturer in Hebrew Bible and Language
Megan teaches Hebrew Bible and language. Raised in country Victoria, she studied Law/Arts at Latrobe University, where her interest in the interrelationship between law, morality, justice, and the Bible first began. Her PhD on the character of biblical law, completed through the University of Sydney in 2021, has been accepted for publication by Mohr Siebeck. In addition to her role at Whitley College, Megan is the Secretary of the Fellowship for Biblical Studies, an organisation that promotes research and discussion on biblical studies and related fields in Australia and beyond.
Dr Turton’s research interests are focused in the areas of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, ancient Near Eastern history, Second Temple Judaism, law and religion, women and gender, and the interpretation of the Hebrew Bible within ancient and contemporary contexts.
Among her recent publications is “Deuteronomic Law, Deuteronomic Narrative, or Exodus Narrative? The Multivalence and Multiformity of Deuteronomy 18:15–22,” in Deuteronomy in the Making: Studies in the Production of Debarim, edited by Diana Edelman et al., BZAW 533 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2021).
Rev Associate Professor Sean Winter
Dean of Research
Sean is the Dean of Research and Director of New Testament Studies at Whitley. He has spent more than 25 years in theological education, initially in the United Kingdom and, since 2009, in Australia. He has taught at the Universities of Bristol, Oxford, and Birmingham and was Lecturer in New Testament at Northern Baptist College in Manchester from 2000–2008. Prior to coming to Whitley in 2024, Sean spent 16 years in teaching and leadership in the United Faculty of Theology and Pilgrim Theological College, where he was Principal from 2018–2024.
Sean is an ordained Baptist minister. He was in pastoral ministry in the UK from 1994-1999, served in numerous interim ministry positions, and was the Moderator of the Council of the Baptist Union of Great Britain from 2006–2008.
As well as overseeing Whitley’s research program and activities, Sean teaches New Testament subjects, especially the letters and theology of Paul. He has a passion for helping Christian disciples understand how rigorous, informed, and critical engagement with Scripture makes the church more, not less, biblical in its worship, mission, and service.