Saio’s research interests centre on how to replace patriarchal, racist, and capitalist social structures with humane and egalitarian ways of living and organising. They’re co-author of Prefigurative Politics: Building Tomorrow Today (Polity Press), a book on the revolutionary strategy of building good alternatives in the here and now.

Saio teaches Global Politics at King’s Foundations, tackling issues of democracy, climate change, and global power structures. Saio is also involved in Equality, Diversity and Inclusion work in the university, among other things as an EDI trainer and as co-chair of the EDI committee of CIEL (the Centre for International Education and Languages).

Outside of King’s Saio is a Visiting Lecturer in Academic Skills at Westminster University and was previously Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at Queen Mary University of London where they taught on the International Foundation Programme as well as on undergraduate and postgraduate courses. Saio's PhD focused on radical egalitarian alternatives to neocolonial and capitalist trade across global North-South borders.

As well as teaching in academia, Saio is a community organiser and educator and has spent twenty years running workshops, campaigns and organisations for global justice. For many years Saio worked as a youth worker and a songwriting tutor in a music youth centre. All this has nurtured an interest in radical and transformative pedagogies.