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.

American flags on a wall

What Was the American Dream?

  • by Alex Russell and Maria Sestito
The American Dream as both idea and ideal, for all its complications, has had an undeniably powerful role in shaping values and aspirations in the U.S. and far beyond its borders. We spoke with faculty and students in the College of Letters and Science at UC Davis who represent a wealth of knowledge and perspectives that help us think about American society’s past, present and continuing potential. 
Associate Professor of Religious Studies Meaghan O'Keefe teaches in front of a white board in a classroom from the students' perspective, with the backs of some heads in the foreground.

Clinical to Compassionate: Educating the Next Generation of Health Care Workers

  • by Maria Sestito
The Critical Medical Humanities Program at Aggie Square in Sacramento offers undergraduates an immersive, cohesive learning experience looking at medical issues from multiple cultural and ethical perspectives, giving students a more well-rounded baseline to work from. Taking place across just one quarter, the program meets the requirements for the medical humanities minor. The first official cohort and one of the program's creators discuss the importance of humanities in health care.
A person wearing a colorful shirt looks at Damien Mitchell's display during the Arts & Humanities 2024 Graduation Exhibition at the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art at UC Davis.

UC Davis Graduate Exhibition Showcases Next Generation of Artists, Thinkers

  • by Maria Sestito and Laura Compton
Arts and humanities students at the University of California, Davis, engage with the world in new, thoughtful and imaginative ways. In the upcoming Arts & Humanities 2025 Graduate Exhibition, students from across the College of Letters and Science are creating public spaces for connection and storytelling, questioning long-held assumptions and histories, and using artistic expression and design to suggest new pathways to a more sustainable future.
food, eggs and sausage, cooking on black pot

Imagination on Fire: ‘Thinking Food’ Colloquium Explores New Food Futures

  • by Maria Sestito
If we could start all over again, what would our food system look like? What would we want it to look like? And can we make that dream a reality? These are some of the questions the Thinking Food at the Intersections: Justice and Critical Food Studies seeks to explore in "Imagining and Enacting Just Food Futures” on May 30 – 31. The colloquium will bring scholars, activists, artists and chefs together with students and community members for a sensory rich, immersive experience imagining the future of food. 
A man wearing a suit stands in front of three paintings displayed in a gallery of the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art in Davis, Calif.

Painting a Story of Struggle and Triumph in India

  • by Maria Sestito
Nitheen Ramalingam, a graduate of UC Davis' Art Studio M.F.A. program, speaks about the growth he experienced during his studies — also his first time in the U.S. — and how the legacy of the caste system back home in India continues to influence his art practice.
People walk into the "Light Into Density" exhibition, their images blurred as they walk by the title text.

Inside the Planning of an Art Exhibition

  • by Maria Sestito
In this stunning student curated and designed exhibition, pieces from Maria Manetti Shrem's private art collection are experienced in new ways — none of them wrong! Not only does the exhibition, "Light into Density: Abstract Encounters 1920s–1960s," feature abstract paintings by renowned artists, it seeks to expand how viewers see and interpret artwork. On view at the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art through May 5.
A man with brown hair, a short beard and glasses stands for a photo in the shade of trees outside at UC Davis.

Lifelong Aggie Wins $10k Fiction Prize for New Novel

  • by Maria Sestito
Shayne Langford, a lecturer in the Department of English in the College of Letters and Science, won the Maurice Prize for Fiction for his unpublished novel, which he's been working on since his days as an undergraduate at UC Davis. John Lescroart, who started the prize, called Langford's manuscript “dark and powerful.”