He was among a select group of Japanese students recruited by Robert Marshak to come for graduate studies to the University of Rochester.
In 1967, during a visit to Israel, he learned of the dual resonance model, and his later work at Wisconsin was mostly devoted to this idea.
Hsue, M. A. Virasoro and notably with Jean-Loup Gervais, Sakita developed the functional formalism for these calculations in which summation over Riemann surfaces naturally emerged.
Sakita moved there as distinguished professor to participate in the rapid expansion of the physics program and to lead the High Energy Group.
A strong group was built up with first rate work on many areas such as string theory, supersymmetry, particle phenomenology and others.