Petersen Asphalt Research Conference returns to Laramie after 60 years

When the Petersen Asphalt Research Conference comes back to Laramie on July 13-16, it will bring more than academics to the University of Wyoming Gateway Center and Western Research Institute. It will put road durability, paving costs and the asphalt that Wyoming drivers pay for into the same room with the people who design the materials.

The 63rd annual conference is expected to draw about 200 attendees, split roughly evenly between the paving and roofing sides of the industry. That matters in a place like Albany County, where better-performing asphalt can mean fewer repairs on state highways, longer intervals between maintenance cycles and less money spent patching the same stretches of pavement year after year. WRI says the conference has spent 60 years promoting research that has produced safer, longer-lasting and more cost-effective highways and asphalt roofing materials around the world.

The Laramie event also carries a local history that dates to 1963, when Dr. J. Claine Petersen organized the first asphalt research conference. The gathering was renamed in his honor in 1990. WRI says the need for better asphalt research became clearer after the Arab Oil Embargo of 1973, when weaknesses in understanding asphalt performance were harder to ignore. The institute also points to its work from 1987 to 1993 on programs tied to the Federal Highway Administration as part of the shift toward performance-based asphalt specifications.

This year’s program will include an opening reception, three days of proceedings, a poster session, a banquet and a Thursday tour of WRI’s facility and labs. Presentations and posters were limited to in-person participation, and presenters had to register by June 8 after an abstract period that ran from January 12 through March 30. The venue is the University of Wyoming Gateway Center in Laramie, with WRI still rooted on the University of Wyoming campus at 3474 N. 3rd Street.

The conference should also bring a short-term boost to Laramie hotels, restaurants and other businesses as researchers, highway officials, suppliers, producers and engineered-products manufacturers fill the town. WRI says the meeting has drawn participants from across the world, including 186 people from 10 countries and three continents in 2025.

The timing gives the conference a contemporary edge as well. The University of Wyoming’s Center for Carbon Capture and Conversion says it is developing coal-derived asphalt products that can be customized for paving or roofing and may emit less than one-third of the carbon dioxide of conventional asphalt. For Laramie, that means the conference is not just revisiting history, but pointing toward the next generation of road materials and the budgets that depend on them.