Among her other honors, she was the first woman elected to the Science Council of Japan, to earn a doctorate in chemistry from the prestigious University of Tokyo, and to win the Miyake Prize for Geochemistry.

[2] At the age of 21, Saruhsashi quit her secure job at an insurance firm to attend the Imperial Women's College of Science, now known as Toho University, where she earned a degree in chemistry.

[3] After graduating in 1943 with an undergraduate degree in chemistry, Saruhashi took a position at the Meteorological Research Institute where she worked with her mentor Miyake Yasuo,[3] and her scientific career took off.

[2] Presented in her 1955 paper ‘On the Equilibrium Concentration Ration of Carbonic Acid Substances Dissolved in Natural Waters: A study on the Metabolism in Natural Waterways’,[9] Saruhashi's table provided oceanographers with a method for determining the composition of three carbonic acid substances based on water temperature, pH, and salinity.

[7] In response to the influx of nuclear testing occurring in the Pacific, the Japanese Government requested that Saruhashi – along with Yasuo Miyake - lead a research project into the long-term and global effects of such activities.

The US Atomic Energy Commission funded a six-month long lab swap in which Saruhashi met with fellow oceanographer Ted Folsom at the Scripps institution of Oceanography at the University of San Diego.

After the six-month lab-exchange ended, it was clear that Saruhashi's method provided incredibly accurate and consistent results; and therefore, the two distinct analytical techniques were both appropriate scientific approaches for measuring the quantity of artificial radioisotopes in seawater.

[5] In 1956, Saruhashi and Miyake discussed in great detail how oxidation of organic material served to augment the values of carbon dioxide present in seawater.

[8] Saruhashi demonstrated that this hypothesis was untenable; as a consequence, scientists were no longer able to purport that global warming could be mitigated naturally by seawater's supposed capacity for the absorption of carbon dioxide gas.

[17][18] In 1981, she established the Saruhashi Prize, a $2400 cash award given to a Japanese woman fifty years old or younger who has made considerable contributions in the physical sciences.

Saruhashi wanted to gift the award recipients larger amounts, contributing personally and with help from friends, but the funds are small compared to other prizes.