Maria Sestito is an award winning writer and columnist currently reporting on older adults for The Desert Sun in Palm Springs, Calif. She is a Report for America Corps Member.

Before moving to the desert, Maria worked as a reporter and photographer at daily newspapers in North Carolina and Northern California, including as the crime reporter for the Napa Valley Register.

She is a "Jersey Girl," Rutgers University graduate, and proud member of the Desert Sun News Guild. She holds a master's in journalism from UC Berkeley, which she earned after already working in journalism for five years. Maria has been a Journalist in Aging Fellow, Age Boom Academy Fellow, Bloomberg-UNC-Berkeley Business Journalism Diversity Fellow, and Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellow.