Robert R. Cargill

Dr. Robert R. Cargill was born in Van Nuys, California to Leonard and Sharon Cargill (née Costáles) on Feb 22, 1973 (Pisces, Ox). He is of Basque and Spanish descent on his mother's side, and (northern) Italian on his father's side, with the Cargill name being of Scottish origin. His family soon relocated to Madera, California, a small farm town in central California that they called home for 15 years. Dr. Cargill has experienced every level of public education in California. He attended John Adams Elementary (Madera, CA), Thomas Jefferson Junior High (Madera, CA), and Madera High School. At age 17, his family moved to nearby Fresno, California, where he graduated from Bullard High School. He turned down undergraduate admission offers to attend UC Berkeley, USC, and Pepperdine, choosing instead to attend local community college. By working the graveyard shift at a local Walgreens, Dr. Cargill put himself through Fresno City College, where he earned his A.A. degree and won a state championship in 1992 as a catcher with the baseball team. He then transferred to California State University, Fresno, where he pursued an education in the natural sciences. He followed a pre-medical curriculum and earned a Bachelor's degree in Human Physiology. Dr. Cargill then accepted the J.P. Sanders Scholarship to attend Pepperdine University, where he earned a Master of Science degree in Ministry and his seminary degree, the Master of Divinity. While studying biblical studies at Pepperdine, he began studying archaeology and ancient Near Eastern cultures under Dr. Randall Chesnutt and Dr. John F. Wilson. Also while at Pepperdine, he experienced the birth of his daughter, Talitha Joy. Dr. Cargill returned to Pepperdine in 2002 and taught courses in Hebrew Bible and New Testament. In 2004, he was hired by Academy Award winning actress Nicole Kidman to teach her history and religion of the Middle East. He then accepted a fellowship to attend the University of California, Los Angeles, and earned an M.A. in Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations and his Ph.D. under Dr. William Schniedewind in the UCLA Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, with an emphasis in Second Temple period archaeology and biblical studies. His dissertation work focused on the archaeological remains of Khirbet Qumran, the site associated with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Dr. Cargill is Assistant Professor of Classics and Religious Studies at the University of Iowa with an emphasis on the Digital Humanities. He has previously taught at Pepperdine, Azusa Pacific University, Portland State University, and UCLA, and has made some of his classes available to the public for free. He served as the Instructional Technology Coordinator for the UCLA Center for Digital Humanities from 2009-2011, where he oversaw the integration of technology into higher education classrooms and humanities research. Dr. Cargill was a Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Research Associate at UCLA, and was the Chief Architect and Designer of the Qumran Visualization Project, a real-time virtual reconstruction of the site of Qumran. Dr. Cargill's first book, "Qumran through (Real) Time: A Virtual Reconstruction of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls," examines the settlement of Khirbet Qumran using new technological approaches in the Digital Humanities including digital archaeological reconstruction and virtual reality. He regularly lectures on topics concerning archaeology (including pseudoarchaeology and sensationalist archaeology), biblical studies, Qumran, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Hellenistic Judaism and religious sects in the Second Temple period, linguistic ideology, and the digital humanities. Dr. Cargill has appeared as an expert on numerous documentaries and television shows on channels including History, Discovery, and NatGeo. In 2010, he hosted the National Geographic special, "Writing the Dead Sea Scrolls." In 2013, Dr. Cargill served as the Consulting Producer on the History series, "Bible Secrets Revealed", and appeared in all six episodes. Dr. Cargill was married to his partner, Roslyn, on March 20, 2010. He has four children: a daughter, Talitha; a son, MacLaren; and fraternal twins, Quincy (son) and Rory Kate (daughter). He resides in Iowa City, IA. He is a Mensan and a Rotarian and spends much of his spare time reading and hiking.