A physicist and economist, van der Zwaan is a senior scientist at the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands and Columbia University's Lenfest Center for Sustainable Energy. His expertise is in energy economics, global warming, and technological innovation. Previously, he served as a research associate at Harvard University's Energy Technology Innovation Project and Managing the Atom Project. He has also held research positions at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Stanford University, and the Institut Francais des Relations Internationales in Paris; he worked at the European Organization for Nuclear Research for four years in the 1990s. In addition, van der Zwaan is a council member of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs.