Professor Kutzko received the Philip G. Hubbard Award for Outstanding Education in 2003. The award was created by a gift from Joseph A. Walder, MD, PhD, a former UI professor of biochemistry and founder of Integrated DNA Technologies. It honors the late UI professor and administrator Philip G. Hubbard and his commitment to educational excellence. The award recognizes the UI faculty member who has best exemplified extended teaching excellence.

Professor Kutzko joined the faculty of the Department of Mathematics in 1974. He is particularly successful at helping students overcome their anxieties about learning mathematics. A leader on diversity initiatives, he has had an enormous influence on the curricula in his department and in the College, and on the UI's inclusiveness as an institution. A world leader in research on the interface of number theory and group representation theory, Kutzko has been an invited speaker or visiting professor at some of the most prestigious mathematics departments in the world.