Brutsaert joined the Cornell faculty in 1962, after receiving his doctorate and he is currently the W.L. Lewis Professor of Engineering. During sabbaticals and short-term leaves he has also worked with Tippetts-Abett-McCarthy-Stratton, New York, NY 9/1965-7/1966; the Geophysical Institute, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan, 9/1969-6/1970; the Engineering College, University of Tokyo, Japan, 6-8/1973; the Isotope Department, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel, 6-7/1975; the Department of Hydraulics and Catchment Hydrology, Agricultural University, Wageningen, Netherlands, 9/1976-7/1977; the Laboratory of Hydrology and Glaciology, Federal Institute of Technology, ETH, Zurich, Switzerland, 6-8/1978; the Department of Civil Engineering, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan, 9/1983-7/1984; the Laboratory of Hydrology, University of Ghent, Belgium, 8/1990-8/1991; the University of Tsukuba, Life & Environmental Science, 6-8/1994, 6-9/2005, 4-8/2006, 6-12/2007; the University of Tokyo, Institute of Industrial Science, 9/1998-2/1999; Gifu University, River Basin Res. Center, Japan, 3-8/1999; Nagoya University, Hydrospheric Atmospheric Research Center, 10/2005-3/2006.
He was elected a fellow of the American Geophysical Union in 1982 and president of its hydrology section in 1989; he was elected a fellow of the American Meteorological Society in 1992, and was Council Member of the AMS, 1996 - 1998. He became a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering in 1994, and received an honorary doctorate at the University of Ghent in 1995. He is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Institute of Hydrology, and the International Association of Hydrological Sciences.
