Our Story

Elli and Rob are the co-founders of Partners in Mindfulness, a platform designed to help connect interested communities and organizations to mindfulness based workshops and practices. 

They first met in 2007 while completing their undergraduate degrees. In 2011, they were invited on tour by monastic students of Zen Master and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Thich Nhat Hanh to offer mindfulness workshops on college campuses. Together they visited various universities, including Harvard, Yale and Columbia, sharing mindfulness practices with over a thousand students. Since then, they have embarked on many mindfulness adventures together, spending time working, practicing and traveling around the world with Thich Nhat Hanh and his community, collectively known as "Plum Village". This work has taken them to such diverse spaces as the World Bank, Google headquarters, and youth centers in Bhutan and India. 

Currently, they enjoy collaborating with various healthcare institutions, universities, and organizations in the United States and Canada including the University of Toronto, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, The Hospital For Sick Children, and the Ontario Hospital Association.

Elli Weisbaum
Co-Founder | Based in Toronto, Canada

• Elli Weisbaum has worked internationally facilitating mindfulness workshops and retreats within the sectors of education, healthcare and business. This has included work in Canada, Bhutan, India, Germany, France, the UK and USA. 

• She is currently based at the University of Toronto as an Assistant Professor (teaching stream) in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (BPMH) & Department of Psychiatry, Temerty Faculty of Medicine.

• Her PhD thesis research at UofT Faculty of Medicine focused on applying mindfulness to physician wellbeing. Read the findings from this work in this article, published in CMAJ in 2023.

• Elli has facilitated mindfulness training sessions for the Faculty of Law, School of Public Health and Faculty of Engineering at the University of Toronto, along with in-person and online training sessions for the Ontario Hospital Association (OHA) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). 

• She is a certified teacher in the Search Inside Yourself (SIY) program which was developed at Google Headquarters and brings together mindfulness, emotional intelligence and neuroscience. 

• Since 2015 she has been a member of the Mindfulness Project Team at The Hospital for Sick Children, which acts as a hub for mindfulness initiatives across the hospital. 

• She is a board member for the Mindfulness in Education Network (MiEN) and is on the health docket review team for the Pollination Project, which gives out seed grants to individual changemakers all over the world. 

• She attended her first retreat with Zen Master and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Thich Nhat Hanh at the age of ten. 

• Elli’s novel background in both academic research and traditional mindfulness practice provides a distinct approach to her ongoing work teaching and researching in the field. 

Robert Walsh
Co-Founder | Based in Toronto, Canada

• Rob holds a Masters of Science in Physical Therapy from the University of Toronto and he is passionate about bringing Applied Mindfulness to healthcare providers, patients, students, and working professionals.

• Rob currently works as a freelance mindfulness facilitator and teacher. He is an instructor for the Applied Mindfulness and Meditation Certificate Program, part of the University of Toronto’s (UofT) School of Continuing Studies.

• Since 2020, Rob has been working to develop a curriculum to integrate Applied Mindfulness into the Masters of Science in Physical Therapy at UofT, lecturing throughout their two year program.

• Rob facilitates the Applied Mindfulness Program for Medical Personnel (AMP-MP) through the Temerty Faculty of Medicine. For more on AMP-MP, see this peer-reviewed article in CMAJ, 2023.

• He also facilitates mindfulness training sessions for the Faculty of Law, various healthcare clinics, and is part of a team of facilitators offering the Mindful Awareness and Resilience Skills for Adolescents (MARS-A) program for adolescents with chronic illness at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. 

• Rob has practiced and trained in the field of mindfulness for over twelve years. In this time, he has worked internationally in the sectors of healthcare and education to organize and facilitate mindfulness workshops and retreats in multiple countries including Bhutan, India, Canada, and the United States. 

• This work and training has primarily been conducted with the internationally recognized Plum Village Community of Nobel Peace Prize Nominee and Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, along with MBSR training through Brown University.

• In 2012, he co-founded Wake Up Toronto, a weekly Engaged Mindfulness practice group, which is part of the University of Toronto Mindful Moments initiative. 

• Prior to his training in physical therapy, Rob worked in the film and television industry as a film technician and cinematographer. 

• These diverse life experiences underpin his ongoing work, which aims to cultivate wellness through the integration of Applied Mindfulness into the sectors of education, healthcare and business.