Prior to joining the university, he was a scholar at the United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies of Sustainability in Tokyo. His research focuses on wastewater treatment and water purification, specifically the applications of water technologies to remove heavy metals from contaminated water. His work seeks to capture water directly from non-traditional sources such as municipal wastewater and restore it to near drinking water quality using low-cost absorbents to remove pollutants. Recently, Kurniawan has been identified by the Institute for Scientific Information-Thompson Reuters among the top 1 percent of researchers in the field of engineering.