Dr. Sanchez completed her undergraduate work at California State University, Fresno, receiving a B.A. in Psychology with Magna Cum Laude honors. At Fresno State, Dr. Sanchez worked on independent research concerning speech and false memory. She was active in Psi Chi and was a member of several scholars programs, which included the Sally Cassanova Pre-Doctoral Program. Dr. Sanchez was also a National Institute of Mental Health – Career Opportunities in Research (NIMH-COR) Honors Scholar, McNair Scholar, and Psychology Honors Scholar. In addition, while completing her undergraduate degree, she was awarded a summer internship at Columbia University in the city of New York.

Dr. Sanchez received her Ph.D. and M.A. in psychology from the University of California, Riverside. At UCR, Dr. Sanchez specialized in the area of Cognitive Psychology. Her research emphasized speech perception, production, and memory. Her research concerned auditory and visual speech, talker-specific characteristics, and speech alignment / convergence.

Dr. Sanchez was awarded a Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship with the New Zealand Institute of Language, Brain and Behaviour (NZILBB) at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, NZ. Here she expanded her research to include social factors that may play a role in speech changes.

Dr. Sanchez is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Cal Poly Humboldt.