Javier Gonzalez Sanchez's research takes place at the intersection of software engineering and human-computer interaction. It is focused on developing and advancing development approaches for self-adaptive systems; particularly, these where adaptation is driven using human-factors, such as cognition and affect. It is a transdisciplinary research that applies innovative technologies such as physiological sensors, eye-tracking systems, facial gestures and posture recognition, and brain-computer interfaces. As part of his research, he has designed and managed the development of affective meta tutoring system and adaptive games, improved avatars for interpersonal communication, and prototyped augmented reality applications.

He has published in peer-reviewed conferences and journals; he has been a tutorial speaker at ACM OOPSLA/SPLASH (2008-2010), ITS (2010), IEEE ICALT (2011) and ACM CHI conference in 2012.

Prior to joining Arizona State as a lecturer in the School of Computing, Informatics, and Decision Systems Engineering, he was a teaching professor at Tecnologico de Monterrey, where he taught undergraduate courses in the areas of software architecture, software engineering, web development, and programming. He was also an adjunct professor at Universidad de Guadalajara in the Masters in Applied Computing program and the Masters in Information Technologies program. As a practitioner, he has worked as software engineer and consultant. Within the business field, he has participated as CTO in two startup companies.

Through his professional and academic career, he have been honored with several awards, including, in 2014, the ACM Senior Member Award which recognizes ACM members with at least 10 years of professional experience who have demonstrated exceptional performance.