Dr. Egan’s research lies at the intersection of the history of science, technology, and the environment. In 2007, he published Barry Commoner and the Science of Survival: The Remaking of American Environmentalism with the MIT Press. In 2008, Routledge published Natural Protest: Essays on the History of American Environmentalism, a collection of original essays that he co-edited with Dr. Jeff Crane (Sam Houston State University).
In addition to developing the Sustainable Future History Project, he is also at work on a book-length study on the history of knowing and regulating mercury pollution in the global environment since World War II, while also playing with a project that examines the emergence of a public or vernacular science of the environmental crisis in the United States. With Adam Sowards, he is collaborating on a history of invasion ecologies, and with Jody Roberts, he is working on a history of enthusiasm for alternative energy technologies during periods of economic downturn in the United States.