Maria Sestito

Maria Sestito 

Department Editor, Arts & Humanities

Maria Sestito writes about all things arts and humanities as part of the College of Letters and Science’s marketing and communications team. She is an award-winning writer and journalist. Prior to joining UC Davis, she worked for a decade in newsrooms across California and in North Carolina as a photographer, reporter and columnist. She’s also taught journalism to high school students through TRIO Upward Bound and Oregon State University.

Sestito earned her bachelor’s degree in Middle Eastern Studies with a Women and Gender Studies minor at Rutgers University in New Jersey. She earned her master’s degree in journalism at UC Berkeley.

She is an alumna of AmeriCorps and Report for America. Some of her past fellowships were through the U.S. Department of Education Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS), Columbia Journalism School, USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism and the Bloomberg Journalism Diversity Program.

Gözde Göncü-Berk presents to Maria Manetti Shrem, Estella Atekwana, dean of the College of Letters and Science at UC Davis, and others ahead of a ribbon cutting for the Maria Manetti Shrem Institute for Sustainable Design, Fashion and Textiles on Nov. 13, 2025.

Endowed Chair Named for Sustainable Design, Fashion and Textiles

  • by Maria Sestito
Gözde Göncü-Berk, associate professor of design, has been named the inaugural Maria Manetti Shrem Endowed Chair in Design, Fashion and Textiles and the founding director of the Maria Manetti Shrem Institute for Sustainable Design, Fashion and Textiles at the University of California, Davis. Her work focuses on development of soft wearable systems that sense, respond and adapt to the body to enhance health, well-being and performance.
Group photo with all participants in black sitting in a warehouse style room.

Taproot Festival Brings New Music, Experimental Performances

  • by Maria Sestito
Composers and musicians will come together this fall to build community and experiment with new sounds at the Taproot New Music Festival at UC Davis. Curator Sam Nichols says “there is a sense of adventure” to the festival, which promises to provide audiences with a sense of what is happening now in the genre. The first concert kicks off Oct. 25, followed by a full weekend of events Nov. 6 - 9, 2025. 
mural that says Welcome to Davis and includes different motifs of the city of Davis

‘Welcome to Davis’ Mural Celebrates City and UC Davis Legacy

  • by Maria Sestito
Seongmin Yoo has been working with the Davis Mural Team for the last three years and has helped paint five different murals downtown. She is passionate about helping the local art scene thrive. Her latest effort welcomes residents, visitors and passersby into the city as they travel along I-80 through Davis. Featuring blue skies, green pastures, and some of the city’s most iconic imagery, Yoo’s “Welcome to Davis” mural is a celebration of art, agriculture and education.