She is rhe Director of Engineering, Advanced Development Group, for a major automobile company, responsible for all research and development activities in diverse areas as automotive door systems, lighting systems, seat systems, instrument panels, airbags and steering wheels. She oversees the work of engineers, scientists, technicians, and other support groups. Since 1972, Dr. Sanders has spent most of her professional career in Automotive Manufacturing Research and Development activities, working in areas as: Director, Assembly Systems; Director, Artificial Intelligence (AI); Manager, CAD/CAM Tooling Systems Development; and Manager, Composite Materials Processing and Experimental Physicist, Laser Processing. She was responsible for two major components of AI: knowledge engineering or expert systems, and natural language processing. In the materials lab, Dr. Sanders moved from lasers to computers. She was assigned to find, order and program a computer that could perform real-time calculations, or analyze information during a test instead of afterward, so researchers and machines could react immediately rather than wait hours or days for the data to be run. She later moved into reinforced plastics, the program that eventually led to a plastic-bodied sports coupe.