Oliver Wisco, a Cascades Academy parent, has been dedicated to mentoring young people since he was just a teenager.
"I started at 16 when a friend needed a baseball coach," he recalls. This early experience sparked a lifelong commitment to mentorship, which has only grown stronger by the support he’s received throughout his life as a first-generation American.
With much of his medical career spent in the U.S. Air Force, Oliver is president and founder of Dermatology Health Specialists, a Central Oregon clinic system focused on serving high-risk and underserved populations. He’s also an associate professor of dermatology at Brown University.
“I don’t think of mentoring as an addition to what I do. It’s part of what I do,” he says. “These are talented people who want to make a difference.”
Oliver serving in the U.S. Air Force
Oliver’s mentorship extends to students from high school to medical school, including many from Cascades Academy. Rising seniors Kai Sereni and Ariya Lippincott are in their second year working with Oliver, each fueling their unique passions and interests while earning credit along the way.
Kai is honing his machine learning, artificial intelligence, and computer science skills by developing an open-source data registry for skin cancer surgery. Oliver provides him with opportunities to observe surgeries and reflect on the impact of his work on patient care.
“Kai is gaining a true understanding of the value he can bring as a programmer and member of a team,” Oliver says.
Ariya, driven to help people through medicine from a young age, has progressed from observing surgeries to becoming one of Oliver’s surgical medical assistants and a member of his research team at Brown.
“She’s benefiting from hands-on care in Central Oregon combined with a virtual research team at an Ivy institution,” says Oliver.
Oliver earned a Brown University teaching award this year
Oliver aims to foster young people's passion for medicine and bolster their confidence. Earlier this year, Ariya was published in medical literature alongside Oliver and their research team and she’s currently assisting with a multi-million dollar grant application. As a result of Oliver’s mentorship, both she and Kai are gaining experiences that others don’t typically have until much later in their academic journeys.
Mentorship, for Oliver, is also about building a qualified workforce motivated by the right reasons.
“I want to make sure they know they are capable,” he says. “And that they have the experience and support system to qualify them for that next level.”
Visiting Harvard University
Oliver took Kai, Ariya, and his daughter, Asher, also a rising Cascades Academy senior, on a New England college tour last year to experience college life. His oldest daughter, Tia, graduated from Cascades Academy in 2023 and is pursuing a BFA in Musical Theatre at the University of Utah after an influential internship at the Tower Theater.
Oliver values Cascades Academy for its personalized experiential learning, community connections, and small class sizes.
“Teachers really get to know their students,” he says. “They help them find opportunities that give them immersive experiences at an early age.”
By providing Cascades Academy students with these opportunities and guidance, teachers and mentors alike are equipping the next generation of professionals with the skills, confidence, and ambition needed to make a meaningful difference in the world.