[1] In 2022 Kukutai was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi.

After a 2010 PhD titled The thin brown line: re-indigenizing inequality in Aotearoa New Zealand at Stanford University, Kukutai moved to the University of Waikato, rising to full professor.

[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] In 2022 Kukutai was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi.

The society said "She has undertaken a broad range of applied population research, from iwi projections and demographic profiling, to survey-based analysis of Māori identity and whānau structure.

"[9] In 2023 Kukutai was awarded the New Zealand Association of Scientist's Hill Tinsley Medal.