She completed her PhD and postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Cambridge, UK, focused on the early origins of metabolic syndrome with an emphasis on obesity and diabetes. Desai is an associate editor of the Journal of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (Cambridge University Press) and a member of the NIH Review Committee Study Section on Integrative Physiology of Obesity and Diabetes. Her research focuses on developmental programming of metabolic syndrome and has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, March of Dimes, the American Heart Association, and the American Diabetes Association.