Royal College of Art announces the Pokémon Scholars for 2025

The annual Pokémon Scholarship for the academic year 2025/2026 provides support to two pioneering RCA students who demonstrate the potential for breaking new ground in visual arts, design and communications. The winners of the eighth Pokémon scholarship are Zachary Miller-Waugh and Aileen Gavonel. In addition to receiving scholarships for their 2025/2026 studies, the pair will be invited to visit the Pokémon Company in Japan.

Zachary Miller-Waugh (MA/MSc Innovation Design Engineering) is a design and community engineer from New Zealand. With an interdisciplinary background, Zac works to bridge the divide between people and technology to empower communities. Zac looks for opportunities to experiment and push boundaries across software development, UX, fabrication, and design. Since moving to London in 2024, Zac’s projects have included explorations of alternatives to light pollution, kinetic wave sculptures, and ways to improve passenger safety in lifts. In his free time, Zac develops and runs events such as the ‘Terrible Ideas Weekend’, a challenge to design and make the most interesting and ‘terrible’ creations.

‘The Pokémon Scholarship is an unbelievable opportunity, and I am so thankful for it! It will allow me to fully focus on my studies in the coming year in ways that simply would not have been possible without the foundation’s generous support. I’m looking forward to the opportunities presented, including joining the growing community of Pokémon scholar alumni at the RCA.’

Zachary Miller-Waugh, MA/MSc Innovation Design Engineering student and scholarship recipient for 2025/26

Aileen Gavonel (MA Ceramics & Glass) is a multidisciplinary Peruvian artist whose practice blends ceramics, performance, visual poetry, and collaborative making. With a background in printmaking, her transition into ceramics was shaped through self-taught processes and work with Peruvian artisans. Her work embraces clay as a method of listening, resistance, and care, and explores human fragility, emotional repair, and the tension between science and spirituality. Aileen co-founded the ceramics project ‘Taller Dos Ríos’ and launched the applied arts community ‘Casa Volcán’ in Lima. Recent highlights include performance ‘SHHHHH’ and exhibition ‘El Cuarto de las Caracoles’ at Proyecto NASAL, and participation in the 2nd Bienal de la Amazonía in Belém.

‘Thanks to the Pokémon Scholarship, I have the opportunity to deepen my relationship with clay by bridging empirical and academic approaches to learning. This support allows me to explore new techniques while expanding and refining my technical vocabulary. It also enables me to meaningfully contrast methods I’ve acquired through hands-on, ancestral knowledge with those found in formal academic contexts. The scholarship not only supports my education, but also strengthens the foundations of my creative practice opening up new ways of understanding, making, and imagining through clay.’

Aileen Gavonel, MA Ceramics & Glass student and scholarship recipient for 2025/26