Leonard van der Kuijp began his studies in mathematics, but then shifted his attention to Tibet.
In 1993 van der Kuijp received the MacArthur Fellowship for "pioneering contributions to the study of Tibetan epistemology, biography and poetry.".
In 1999, he founded the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center (TBRC), together with E. Gene Smith.
Van der Kuijp was elected a foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2018.
He coauthored An Early Tibetan Survey of Buddhist Literature which was published as volume 64 of the Harvard Oriental Series in 2008.