Dr. Eduardo Sanchez serves as Chief Medical Officer (CMO) for Prevention for the American Heart Association (AHA) He was the Principal Investigator (PI) of the National Hypertension Control Initiative (NHCI), a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Minority Health (OMH) and the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). He is the AHA clinical lead on Target:BPTM, a joint blood pressure control initiative with the American Medical Association. Before joining AHA, he served as Vice President and CMO for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas, and before that, he served as director of the Institute for Health Policy at the University of Texas School of Public Health. Dr. Sanchez served as Texas Commissioner of Health leading the Texas Department of Health from 2001 to 2004 and the Texas Department of State Health Services from 2004 to 2006. He serves and has served on numerous local, state, and national health-related boards of directors and advisory committees. Dr. Sanchez obtained his MD from the University of Texas (UT) Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, an MPH from the UT Health Science Center at Houston School of Public Health, and an MS in biomedical engineering from Duke University. He holds a BS in biomedical engineering and a BA in chemistry from Boston University.