She is a professor in the Information Systems and Technology Department at the University of Missouri–St.
[2] Sauter grew up near Chicago; her father was murdered in an attempted robbery when she was a teenager, an event she cites as influential in her commitment to service.
When she earned tenure there, she became the first woman in the College of Business Administration to do so.
[5] Sauter is the 2003 winner of the George E. Kimball Medal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) for her service to the institute and particularly for her work in the merger of the two organizations ORSA and TIMS that together formed INFORMS.
In 2012 she won the INFORMS WORMS Award for the Advancement of Women in OR/MS.