She has previously served as Interim President of the Sabancı University (February–November 2018) and co-chaired the scientific advisory committee for Synchrotron-Light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East (SESAME).
[6][2] In 1986 she was the first woman staff scientist to be appointed to the Hamburg outstation of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory,[6][7] where she used synchrotron radiation to study cytoskeletal proteins and chromatin.
In 1998 Sayers returned to Turkey, joining the founding faculty of Sabancı University[8] as the partner of Ahmet Evin.
[5] Sayers became involved with the Synchrotron-Light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East (SESAME)[10] project since 2000.
[12] During her time as Co-chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee, more than 100 young scientists were trained to use the synchrotron radiation.