[10][11] He is currently the Director of the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH),[12] and a Research Professor at the City College of New York.

Prior to that he was the Henry Hart Rice Senior Fellow at the Yale University's MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies and its Department of Political Science.

In 2013, he joined the Centre for Environmental Policy of Imperial College London after serving as an assistant professor at the University of Central Florida for three years.

[27] In 2017, his name appeared in the media, including Shargh,[28] as one of the candidates[29] with strong support from the Iranian environmental NGOs and activists[30] to become Iran's Minister of Energy after Hamid Chitchian in Hassan Rouhani's second presidency term.

He was appointed by Issa Kalantari as the Deputy for International Affairs, Innovation and Socio-cultural Engagement of Iran's Department of Environment in 2017.

[34][35][36] In April 2018, he resigned[37] from his political post and revealed that he was kept under surveillance by the Iranian intelligence services and hardliners since his return to Iran.

[46][47] Bi-Zobaleh turned into a viral social media game in Iran with many celebrities, top politicians, influential figures, activists and the public from all walks of life joining the challenge from different parts of the country, sharing their solutions and actions on waste reduction in the environment.

He received the Arne Richter Award for Outstanding Young Scientists[52] from the European Geosciences Union (EGU) in 2016 for "fundamental contributions to integrating game theory and decision analysis into water management models"[4] He received the Walter L. Huber prize for "groundbreaking research in developing methods for the allocation of scarce water resources merging conflict-resolution and game-theoretic concepts for application to complex water resources systems”,[53][15] introducing "novel insight on how to achieve binding, long-term solutions to complex water resources problems",[54] and “outstanding leadership in the application of systems analysis to environmental, water and energy resource problems.”[5][55] He received the Hydrologic Sciences Early Career Award from the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in 2019[56][57] for "fundamental contributions to integrating game theory and decision analysis methods into conventional water resources systems models" and "proven dedication to education, outreach, raising public awareness on environmental and climate issues, and selfless service to the hydrologic sciences community has had major societal impacts.