She was part of a team who won the US National Staff Development Council's Best Research Award for a three-year project on the impacts of teacher certification.
[1][2] Sato joined the faculty of the University of Minnesota, where she was the inaugural Carmen Starkson Campbell Chair for Innovation in Teacher Development.
[2] From 2013 to 2016 Sato was appointed to the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education Committee on Research and Dissemination.
[5] While at the University of Minnesota, Sato received the National Staff Development Council's 2009 Best Research Award alongside her collaborators Linda Darling-Hammond and Ruth Chung Wei.
Their three-year research project showed that the process of certification can improve teachers' use of student learning assessments.