Desi, originally from Bulgaria, completed her BSc in Molecular Biology at the University of Edinburgh in 2015. She remained in Edinburgh for her PhD during which she studied the mechanisms of gene regulation in the sleeping sickness-causing parasite Trypanosoma brucei. 

Desi came to Cambridge in 2022 as a postdoc in the group of Prof Kathy Niakan. She is currently studying the role of transcription factors in early mammalian embryos.