Taylor Taliesin

With a healing, supportive nature, Taylor Taliesin is continuing a path of finding new ways to connect with and care for their community. It’s a resolve traced back to middle school, when Taliesin sought out CPR and first aid training to help fellow students who engaged in self-harm. And prior to coming to COCC, they were active in many areas of the health care field — as a trained EMT, nursing assistant, phlebotomist and medical assistant — now turning their attention to public health and mental wellness.

“It is important to me that every step in my education enables me to help people,” says Taliesin, who recently finished Peer Support Specialist training at COCC and is soon to be the College’s first completer of a brand-new certificate in Community Health. They are also pursuing an associate degree in Human Services. “I want all the tools,” Taliesin adds, whose short-term focus is to become a group therapy counselor, with aspirations to ultimately become a physician-scientist.

The dean’s list student is a member of COCC’s Q+ Club (formerly the S2LGBTQIA+ Club), helped found the Umbrella Club for neurodivergent students, and serves as an advisory council board member for the Central Oregon chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. For their dedication to academics, classmates and community, Taliesin was named one of three members of COCC’s 2025 All-Oregon Academic Team.

“College was not an option for me until I received my diagnosis for autism,” Taliesin shares, whose diagnosis, at age 28, provided a “blueprint” to help create a college plan. “I was able to work with my local vocational rehab program, which had a close relationship with COCC,” adds Taliesin, who then applied for, and received, a COCC Foundation scholarship. “With appropriate accommodation and support, I have been able to be wildly successful at school and am looking forward to giving back to my community.”