Delaney Ruston

Background

About Delaney Ruston

Delaney Ruston is a filmmaker, author, and Stanford-trained physician with 25 years of experience creating award-winning documentaries focused on social change, especially around mental health. Her recent award-winning films include Screenagers, which explores solutions for healthy screen time; Screenagers NEXT CHAPTER, which addresses teen mental health; and Screenagers Under the Influence, covering vaping, drugs, and alcohol in the digital age. Her latest film, Screenagers: Elementary School Age Edition, tackles the challenges faced by elementary-aged children, parents, and educators. To date, over 14 million youth and adults have gathered for community screenings of these films in 104 countries. As a trusted expert on youth and screen time, Delaney has been invited to speak at Google, Facebook, The Aspen Institute, many national conferences, and medical and academic centers. Her views are often in the press, such as Good Morning America, NPR, the New York Times, and many others. Her award-winning PBS films, Unlisted: A Story of Schizophrenia, about her father, and Hidden Pictures, about global mental health, were both the focus of advocacy campaigns, including with the World Health Organization. For her work in mental health advocacy, Ruston has won several awards, including from Harvard and Mental Health America. Ruston, a Fulbright scholar, was a researcher in human communication and bioethics at UC San Francisco and then was faculty at the University of Washington School of Medicine followed by Stony Brook School of Medicine, New York. Alongside filmmaking, Ruston has been providing care to underserved teens and adults in Seattle for the past 20 years. In addition, Delaney is the author of Parenting In The Screen Age, the host of the Screenager Podcast, and the writer of the Tech Talk Tuesday Blog.