From 1977 until his death in 2008, Kong served as a United Nations high-level consultant to the undersecretary-general, as well as an interregional advisor on remote sensing technology for the United Nations Department of Technical Cooperation for Development.

Among Kong's PhD graduates were Leung Tsang, Weng Chew, Tarek Habashy, Shun-Lien Chuang, Apo Sezginer, Robert Shin, Jay K Lee, Eni Njoku, Michael Zuniga, Jean-Fu Kiang, Maurice Borgeaud, Soon Poh, Simon Yueh, Son Nghiem, Yaqiu Jin, Eric Yang, William Au, Joel Johnson, Chi On Ao, Henning Braunisch, Bae Ian Wu, Xudong Chen, Baile Zhang, Hongsheng Chen, etc.

From 1984 to 2003, he was the chairman of Area IV on Energy and Electromagnetic Systems at MIT.

From 1989 until 2008, Kong was director of the Center for Electromagnetic Theory and Applications in the Research Laboratory of Electronics at MIT.

Kong was also the founding chair of the Progress In Electromagnetics Research Symposium (PIERS), from 1989 to 2008.