Saiba Bayo holds a doctorate in Political and Social Science, specialising in Political Philosophy, from the Universitat Pompeu Fabra. His doctoral thesis analysed Ousmane Sembène's film work, concentrating on exploring masculinity and social change over the first twenty years of independent Senegal. He lectures at the School of Communication and International Relations, part of the Blanquerna – Ramon Llull University, and is a researcher linked to the Universitat Pompeu Fabra and the Barcelona Network for Critical Thought and Social Research (BCNCT).

He has been a researcher and visiting scholar at Indiana University, Bloomington, United States, and is part of the seminar Early African Cinema Lab, which works on the archives of Ousmane Sembène and Paulin Soumanou Vieyra, held by the Black Film Center & Archive at this university. Dr. Bayo has contributed to numerous books and published papers in influential academic journals. He won the 2025 Casa África essay prize, awarded by the Spanish ministry of foreign affairs, for his work El laberinto decolonial: ensayo sobre las contribuciones africanas a los paradigmas de descolonización.