Ms. Sakata attended high school in Maine as an American Field Service exchange student, then graduated from Kyoto University with a bachelor's degree in literature in 1972. From 1965-66, she worked at and managed a photowire service. Upon the death of her husband, photojournalist Greg Davis, she went to Vietnam to film victims of Agent Orange, and completed the film Agent Orange - A Personal requiem in 2007. The film's sequel Living the Silent Spring depicts the long lasting effects of defoliant in Vietnam and the USA. In 2014, she directed the film Journey without End-Living in the Nuclear Age.