Edgar N. Sanchez was born in 1949, in Sardinata, Colombia, South America. He obtained his BSEE major in Power Systems from Universidad Industrial de Santander (UIS, Bucaramanga, Colombia) in 1971, his MSEE from CINVESTAV-IPN (Advanced Studies and Research Center of the National Polytechnic Institute), his major in Automatic Control (Mexico City, Mexico) in 1974, and his Docteur Ingenieur degree in Automatic Control from Institut Nationale Polytechnique de Grenoble, France in 1980.In 1971, 1972, 1975 and 1976, he worked for different electrical engineering consulting companies in Bogota, Colombia. In 1974 he was a professor in the Electrical Engineering Department of UIS, Colombia. From January 1981 to November 1990, he worked as a researcher at the Electrical Research Institute, Cuernavaca, Mexico. He was a professor of the graduate program in electrical engineering at the Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon (UANL), Monterrey, Mexico, from December 1990 to December 1996. Since January 1997, he has been with CINVESTAV-IPN (Guadalajara Campus, Mexico) as a Professor of Electrical Engineering in their graduate programs.

His research interests are in neural networks and fuzzy logic as applied to automatic control systems. He has been the advisor of 21 Ph. D. theses and 40 M. Sc theses.He was granted a USA National Research Council Award as a research associate at NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia, USA (January 1985 to March 1987). He is also a member of the Mexican National Research System (promoted to highest rank, III, in 2005), the Mexican Academy of Science and the Mexican Academy of Engineering. He has published four books, more than 150 technical papers in international journals and conferences, and has served as a reviewer for different international journals and conferences.

He has also been a member of many international conferences, both IEEE and IFAC.