María José Sanz Sánchez  is Scientific Director of the Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3), Ikerbasque Professor, Chair of the Advisory Group of the MDG of the Global Forest Observation Inititative (GFOI) and co-Chair of the Transdisciplinary Advisory Board of the EU Joint Programe Inititative (JPI) on Climate.

She is also Advisor of the Spanish Ministry of Ecological Transition on the Economic impacts assesement of the 2030 Integrate Energy and Climate Change Plan and the 2050 Climate Change LTS.

She has been  Coordinator of the UNREDD Programme at the Forestry Department in FAO, Scientific Director of the Research Institute on Climate Change Zaragoza (I2C2), Senior Programme Officer at UNFCCC Secretariat. In 2007 she represented EU sitting on the UNFCCC CDM Executive Board.

As contributor of IPCC, she got the Noble Prize for Peace in 2007.