Tom Sanchez earned his PhD in City Planning from Georgia Tech in 1996 and has since taught at Iowa State University, Portland State University, the University of Utah, and is currently Chair and Professor of Urban Affairs and Planning at Virginia Tech.  Sanchez conducts research in the areas of transportation, civil rights, environmental justice, public participation, and other social aspects of planning and policy.  His research over the past 20 years has resulted in over 100 articles, reports, and conference presentations on these topics.  As a Nonresident Senior Fellow for the Brookings Institution, he produced several publications about how Metropolitan Planning Organizations address environmental justice in their transportation planning practices.  He currently serves as the editor-in-chief of Housing Policy Debate, a leading journal on the topics of housing and community development policy. In 2012 he co-authored, Planning as if People Matter: Governing for Social Equity (Island Press) with Marc Brenman.  In 2007 they co-authored The Right to Transportation: Moving to Equity (American Planning Association).