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“When the possibility to hold Pittcon 2027 in Pittsburgh suddenly arose, the decision to come back to Pittsburgh was an easy choice,” said Brian Strohmeier, Ph.D., president of Pittcon 2027, in a press release. “Returning to Pittsburgh honors the Pittsburgh scientific community that created Pittcon and has worked diligently over the past 75-plus years to make Pittcon one of the premier conferences and exhibitions in the world of Analytical Chemistry, Applied Spectroscopy, and Laboratory Science.”
In 2025, Pittcon 2025 was held in Boston from March 1 to 5, marking the first time the conference was held in that city. It will be held in San Antonio in 2026.
The origins of Pittcon
In 1950, Pittcon (The Pittsburgh Conference on Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy) held its first conference and exposition at the William Penn Hotel in Pittsburgh. The event traces its origins further back to World War II-era meetings on applied spectroscopy organized by Mary Warga, a University of Pittsburgh spectroscopist, which led to the formation of the Spectroscopy Society of Pittsburgh (SSP) in 1946. The inaugural 1950 event, drawing about 800 attendees and 14 exhibitors, was sponsored from the start by the SSP and the Society for Analytical Chemists of Pittsburgh, as Lab Manager has noted.
Yet, Pittcon soon outgrew its Pittsburgh hotel venues. After 1967, a 1968 hotel workers’ strike forced a last-minute relocation to Cleveland. The move proved successful, and the conference remained in Cleveland for the next 11 years. After that began Pittcon’s decades-long history as a traveling conference, moving through cities like Atlantic City during major growth in the 1980s, New Orleans, Chicago (which saw record attendance over 34,000 in 1996 (See: RSC Chemistry World), Orlando, and Atlanta. All the while, its leadership and mission remained Pittsburgh-based.
A return to the East Coast rather than the West
The 2027 return to Pittsburgh marks a shift from the previously planned San Diego location. Pittcon 2024 in San Diego was the event’s first-ever foray onto the U.S. West Coast, and saw attendance around 6,000 participants. This figure was lower than the roughly 7,500 attendees at Pittcon 2023 in Philadelphia. Philly first hosted Pittcon more recently, in 2013.
Several factors influenced the decision to bring Pittcon 2027 back to Pittsburgh. Firstly, infrastructure improvements now make hosting feasible; the revamped David L. Lawrence Convention Center, opened in 2003 (the initial convention center opened in 1981), provides more space and amenities that the city lacked in the 1960s when Pittcon originally left. Second, the move aligns with community engagement and Pittcon’s core mission of promoting not just science but scientific education as well. “That’s what Pittcon is about. We want students to foster that love for science, so we have the attendees on the floor,” Don Antczak, who will be Pittcon president in 2026, told AZoM. Hosting in Pittsburgh also connects the event location to its philanthropic base and facilitates deeper involvement from the local scientific community – universities such as Carnegie Mellon University, companies, and the network of Pittsburgh-based volunteers.
