Taren Grant Sanders

Taren Grant Sanders is a Principal Research Fellow at the Institute for Positive Psychology and Education, part of Macquarie University's Faculty of Education and Arts. His research focuses on multidisciplinary approaches to youth health, combining behavioral science, public health policy, and educational psychology. Key areas include physical activity promotion, screen time effects, sleep behavior, and mental health interventions. He has led large-scale studies like the TransformUs trial and contributed to systematic reviews on exercise for depression and screen time impacts.

His work emphasizes translational research, bridging academic findings with real-world applications such as school-based interventions. Collaborations span global institutions, and he actively publishes in high-impact journals like Nature Human Behaviour and BMJ. Sanders has pioneered studies on socioeconomic disparities in health outcomes and the role of green spaces in child obesity prevention. Current projects include scaling evidence-based programs for mental health literacy in youth sports.

• Research Highlights:
  • Meta-analyses of 24-hour movement behavior reallocation
  • Screen time policy recommendations based on longitudinal data
  • Development of scalable school interventions (iPLAY, TransformUs)
• Key Themes:
  • Health equity in youth populations
  • Multidimensional wellbeing frameworks
  • Evidence-based intervention design