OUR FACILITATORS

Viviane Ephraimson-Abt, MS, MEd

Fort Collins, Colorado, U.S.A.

• Interculturalist
• Resiliency and well-being specialist
• Mindfulness facilitator
• Staff training
• Program development and management

PL work
Viviane Ephraimson-Abt, MS, MEd, has been practicing Personal Leadership since 1998. She has found it to be so transformative in her own life that she feels motivated to share it with others at every opportunity.

Since 2004, she has enjoyed offering PL trainings and coaching for culturally diverse staff and students in higher education at Colorado State University and University of Colorado Boulder.  She has also presented PL trainings at international conferences for NAFSA: Association of International Educators, and for SIETAR (the Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research).

Other work
Over the course of her career, Viviane has worked primarily as an educator, trainer, interculturalist, and program lead for universities and nonprofit organizations. For over 20 years she was responsible for staff selection and training for globally diverse staff in higher education. In her current role, as the Coordinator of Resiliency and Well-Being at Colorado State University, she develops innovative, evidence-based resiliency and well-being interventions to promote success for students, staff and faculty.

Viviane has taught mindfulness practices to groups, organizations and individuals since 2002. She knows that mindfulness interventions, including Personal Leadership, offer many benefits personally and professionally. She therefore incorporates mindfulness into all her intercultural and diversity teaching. The mindfulness-based trainings she facilitates address a variety of goals. They foster resilience and well-being in all aspects of life. They also help to reduce stress, improve workplace climate, enhance leadership, and increase interpersonal effectiveness.

In addition to being a PL Facilitator, she is a leader in the Community for Mindful Living, and a trainer for the Center for Council Dialogue. She has a strong commitment to developing and deepening her own mindfulness practice.

Personal background
Viviane’s intercultural experiences include being a dual national European-American from a multinational, multilingual and multi-religious family. She has lived in the U.S.A. (both on the urban East Coast and the in Rocky Mountain West), as well as in Germany and Japan.

Academic
Viviane has a BA in Psychology and Political Science from the American University in Washington, DC. She earned an MS in Intercultural Communication from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and a MEd in Human Resource Development with a concentration in Counseling and Career Development from Colorado State University in Fort Collins. She is also a graduate of the Hakomi Institute in Boulder, Colorado, for mindfulness-based somatic psychotherapy.

Other interests
In her free time, Viviane enjoys her global community of family and friends, making art and music in community settings, and hiking with her partner Paul and their two labradoodle dogs, Momo and Kokoro.  She loves living in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, and enjoys visiting the ocean whenever she can.