Professor Rowan: The Elder Professor from Kamado to Sycamore

A massive build and a deep voice, in a role that usually calls for soft-spoken kindness. Professor Rowan runs the lab in Sandgem Town and holds the same place in the Sinnoh region that Oak holds in Kanto: the one who sends beginners on their way. An evolution specialist, he stands at the end of a lineage — an ancestor in Hisui, a student in Kalos.

Contents

• Three Possible Starts at the Sandgem Town Lab
• An Ancestor in Hisui, a Student in Kalos
• In the Anime: Piplup, Hunter J and a Double from Another World
• Professor Rowan at a Glance
• Frequently Asked Questions

Three Possible Starts at the Sandgem Town Lab

Rowan is Sinnoh's resident professor, and his lab is where the game's very first choice is made: a Turtwig, a Chimchar or a Piplup, in Diamond, Pearl and Platinum. The trio covers the three opening types the series always relies on.

His role doesn't stop at handing over a starter. He takes the player on as a field assistant and hands out missions that directly serve his work: completing the Pokédex survey, and even tracking down the region's Legendary Pokémon.

The focus of his research is announced by the character himself: evolution. The detail that sets him apart from the rest of the profession is his wardrobe — he is the only professor who doesn't wear a lab coat at all times, which his imposing frame makes all the more noticeable.

🌱 Sinnoh's three starters have their own section: see the Pokémon starters.

An Ancestor in Hisui, a Student in Kalos

The games make him sixty years old, and place him a generation above Professor Oak: Rowan is the elder of the two, and the two men knew each other well. It's one of the rare chronological markers the series sets between professors from different regions.

Pokémon X and Y add a piece from the other direction: it was Rowan who trained Professor Sycamore. The Kalos researcher, a Mega Evolution specialist, therefore learned his craft from a man whose subject was already evolution.

Finally, the series ties him to his own region's distant past: he is descended from Kamado, the leader of the Galaxy Team in Pokémon Legends: Arceus. The same bloodline thus links the man who first organized research in Hisui with the one who leads it in Sinnoh.

In the Anime: Piplup, Hunter J and a Double from Another World

On screen, Rowan opens the Sinnoh saga by entrusting his Piplup to Dawn, then by helping Ash get his Pikachu back. He doesn't work alone: Gary, now a researcher, works alongside him at the lab.

He comes back several times later in the Diamond & Pearl series. He is the one who warns Ash and his friends that Pokémon Hunter J is at Lake Valor, which occasionally makes him a lookout rather than a supplier of equipment.

The Journeys series gives him one last appearance of an unexpected kind: an alternate version of the professor, living in a parallel world. On the trading card side, his first illustration dates back to the Diamond & Pearl expansion, released in France on November 9, 2007.

Professor Rowan at a Glance

Frequently Asked Questions

• Which games does Professor Rowan appear in?
  He is the professor in Diamond, Pearl and Platinum, where he hands over your first Pokémon from his lab in Sandgem Town. Pokémon X and Y later mention him as the man who trained Professor Sycamore.
• Which starters does Professor Rowan give out?
  You choose one of three: Turtwig, Chimchar or Piplup. In the anime, it's Piplup that he entrusts to Dawn.
• How are Professor Rowan and Kamado connected?
  Kamado is his ancestor. He led the Galaxy Team in Hisui, in Pokémon Legends: Arceus, long before Rowan set up his lab in Sinnoh.
• Is Professor Rowan older than Professor Oak?
  Yes. The games make him sixty and present him as Oak's elder, someone he also knew well.
• What does Professor Rowan do in the anime?
  He gives Piplup to Dawn, helps Ash find Pikachu and works with Gary. He comes back several times in the Diamond & Pearl series, notably to warn about Hunter J at Lake Valor, and the Journeys series shows a version of him from a parallel world.

In short

Rowan has neither the gentleness nor the lab coat of his colleagues, and that's exactly what makes him easy to read: with him, being a researcher looks like a real job, with field missions handed out and a Pokédex to fill. Standing between an ancestor from Hisui and a student from Kalos, he is the professor through whom Pokémon research is told as something passed down.