Maria Sanchez has been a dedicated member of Northwestern Athletics since 2011 and currently serves as the Senior Associate Athletics Director for Leadership and Community Impact. During the 2023-2024 academic year, Sanchez was elevated to serve as a member of the department’s executive staff. In her current role, Sanchez spearheads strategic initiatives aimed at shaping and enhancing the culture and community within Northwestern’s Department of Athletics and Recreation. She is responsible for fostering a high-performance environment for student-athletes, coaches and staff while overseeing department-wide student-athlete development programs that promote leadership, personal enhancement, ethics, safety, wellness, community engagement and career readiness. She is a sport administrator for Northwestern’s field hockey team and a program administrator for NU’s Spirit Squad.

As a senior associate athletics director, Sanchez plays an important role in connecting and collaborating with various university offices. She serves as a key liaison to university leadership and works closely with campus partners to enhance connectivity and cohesion that impacts the student-athlete experience. She is responsible for implementing department-wide policies and best practices to reinforce accountability, well-being, and professional growth for both student-athletes and staff. Additionally, she provides oversight of student-athlete development programming, ensuring that efforts are strategically designed to support personal and professional growth while aligning with institutional goals and NCAA compliance expectations.

Sanchez also plays a vital role in collaborating with the Vice President of Athletics and Recreation to develop and execute the Stronger Together Platform, ensuring that its core values—connectivity, respect, accountability, and excellence—are consistently upheld across all teams, staff, and coaching personnel. Additionally, she leads efforts to enhance connectivity between the department and key university and community stakeholders, identifying strategic initiatives that promote student-athlete development, optimize operational efficiency, and maximize cultural impacts within the department.

During her tenure at NU, Sanchez has held various positions within academic services and student-athlete development. In 2017, she was promoted to associate athletics director charged with supporting the senior associate athletics director in the day-to-day operations of the department’s academic services and student development program. In this role, she supported student-athletes from nine of NU’s varsity teams – including football, men’s and women’s basketball, men’s and women’s golf, wrestling, and lacrosse – as an academic advisor. She also led student development initiatives focused on enhancing leadership skills, promoting student-athlete welfare, and fostering a culture of service and engagement within the university and broader community.

Sanchez came to Northwestern in 2011 after previously serving as the director of athletics academic services at Western Michigan University. Prior to her time at WMU, Sanchez was a graduate assistant in Ball State’s athletics academic services office after serving as a women's basketball assistant coach and a hall director in residence life at her alma mater, Millikin University, in Decatur, Ill.

An Atlanta, Ill., native, Sanchez was a member of Millikin's women's basketball team as an undergraduate where she earned her degree in biology and secondary education. After Millikin, Sanchez graduated from Ball State University with a master's in sports and physical education, with a specialization in sports management.