In 2018, Desh became the Director of Georgetown's Conflict Resolution Program. Desh is Associate Professor in the Department of Government and teaches undergraduate, Master’s, and PhD students. His research looks at issues of political economy such as foreign aid, natural resource wealth and the economic and political foundations of developing countries. He is particularly interested in the degree to which governments are willing, or able, to serve the needs of citizens in post conflict locations. Desh is a 2001 Mitchell Scholar. He received a Master's Degree in International Peace Studies from Trinity College Dublin. It was during his time in Ireland that he began to study political economy in developing countries and the reconciliation and mediation challenges faced by government and society in post conflict environments. This became the focus of his career and led to a PhD from Stanford in political science. Desh published a book entitled Explaining Post-Conflict Reconstruction, which examines the incentives leaders in post conflict states have to use international development assistance productively or for corrupt purposes. He is working on a second book comparing the effectiveness of different types of aid across all developing countries. Desh obtained his undergraduate degree from Penn State.