Dr. Saito completed his Doctor of Engineering degree at Seikei University in Tokyo, Japan in 1980; that same year he came to the University of California at San Diego to conduct post graduate study. In 1981 he moved to Princeton University as Research Associate to conduct experimental combustion research, and later promoted to Prof. Research Staff there. In 1986, he left Princeton to become Associate Professor in Mechanical Engineering at UK; he was promoted to Professor in 1993, and became The Tennessee Valley Authority Professor in Power Engineering in 2000.

Dr. Saito directs the Painting Technology Consortium which has six professional research staff, six doctoral students and approximately $1 million in annual support from seven different companies. He is a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, chair of the International Scale Modeling Committee, and a former committee member of the National Research Council. He holds visiting lecturship with Nippon Steel Corp, Seikei University, University of Tokyo, and had IPA assignment at the National Instutue of Standards and Technology.

He has extensively published his research results in the areas of combustion, fire research, lean manufacturing, surface coating and inspection, scale modeling, and power engineering.