In his own words
“I grew up watching my parents take care of people. I went to dental school at the University of the Pacific intending to do what most dentists do — fill teeth, fix teeth, replace teeth. About five years in, I trained at the Las Vegas Institute and discovered that there is an entirely different way to think about dentistry: as the slow, careful design of something that will last decades and that people will live inside every day.”
“For twenty years now, that has been the work I love most. Planning a smile from the bones outward. Restoring what is there before reaching for what would replace it. Sitting with a patient long enough to actually understand what they want — and being honest about whether we should do less, not more.”
“Outside the office I am the husband of an extraordinary woman, the father of two, and, on a good Saturday, a passable cook. We have lived in the Tri-Valley nearly twenty years. This is home.”
Education and training
- DDS — University of the Pacific, Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry (1997)
- Post-graduate fellowship — Las Vegas Institute for Advanced Dental Studies (LVI) — the cosmetic-dentistry institution most often cited by clinicians training other clinicians
- Continuing education — over 1,000 hours of post-doctoral training in cosmetic dentistry, restorative dentistry, neuromuscular bite engineering, and sedation
Affiliations & recognition
- American Dental Association (ADA), Member
- California Dental Association (CDA), Member
- America’s Top Dentists — Consumer’s Research Council of America
What Dr. Desai personally performs
- Porcelain veneers and smile makeovers
- Full-mouth rehabilitation and complex bite reconstruction
- CEREC same-day ceramic crowns and onlays
- Invisalign clear-aligner orthodontics for adults
- Neuromuscular and TMJ care (an LVI signature)
- Comprehensive restorative dentistry
- Oral and IV sedation dentistry
Why LVI training, specifically, matters
Dental school produces general dentists — competent at fillings, cleanings, simple crowns, basic restorative work. What dental school does not teach in depth is the design of a smile, the engineering of a bite that has to function under thousands of daily forces, and the planning of complex multi-tooth cases. Those disciplines are the focus of the Las Vegas Institute, the most rigorous post-graduate program in cosmetic and neuromuscular dentistry in the United States.
The practical consequence in our office: when we plan a smile makeover, we plan it in three dimensions — how the teeth will look, how the jaw will function, and how the muscles around your face will respond over the next twenty years. The work lasts because the underlying forces are engineered correctly. We see the alternative regularly: patients who come in with five-year-old cosmetic work that is already failing because it was designed to look right in photographs but not to function right in a mouth.
If you’d like to read more about what LVI training is and why it changes outcomes, we wrote a plain-language guide: What is LVI training, and why does it matter for your dentist? →
Why we built the practice multilingual
Dublin has changed in twenty years. When the practice opened, the population was meaningfully smaller and meaningfully less diverse. Today, 55% of Dublin is Asian, with a large Hindi- and Gujarati-speaking community and a growing Chinese-American community, along with a substantial Spanish-speaking population across the Tri-Valley. Most of our patients live in households where multiple languages are spoken every day.
I’m Gujarati. I grew up moving between two languages, and I remember watching my parents try to navigate American medical appointments with technical English they didn’t fully control. I built the practice so that no patient of mine would have to do that. I personally speak Hindi, Gujarati, and English fluently — and we have intentionally built a team that includes Cantonese-speaking and Spanish-speaking staff so that the conversations about consent, treatment options, and cost can happen in the language you think in, no matter who in the office you’re talking with.
If you’re looking for a dentist who can have a real conversation with your parents or grandparents: Hindi → · Gujarati → · Cantonese (team support) → · Spanish (team support) →
Continuing education
The dentistry I trained in twenty years ago looked nothing like the dentistry we do today. Materials, planning software, imaging, bite analysis — the entire toolkit has changed. The only way to keep practicing well is to keep learning. I commit a meaningful share of every year to continuing education, with priority on cosmetic refinement at LVI, advanced restorative planning at the Spear and Kois institutes, and digital workflow integration. Continuing education is part of the practice cost — not an optional add-on — because the patients we cared for fifteen years ago deserve the same currency of skill as the patients we’ll meet next year.
My philosophy, in one sentence
Changing lives by changing smiles.
The work that means the most to me isn’t cosmetic, technically. It’s the patient who hadn’t been to a dentist in twelve years because she was afraid, and walked out smiling. It’s the father who came in self-conscious about his front teeth and came back six months later to tell me his daughter says he looks ten years younger. The smile is the visible part. Everything else is what changing it does to a life.
What patients say about Dr. Desai
“Dr. Desai is one of those rare gentlemen who has exceptional dentist skills and is an amazing human being.” Linnea P. · Pleasanton
Frequently asked about Dr. Desai
Where did Dr. Desai train?
Dr. Desai earned his DDS at the University of the Pacific, Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry in San Francisco (Class of 1997). He completed post-graduate cosmetic-dentistry training at the Las Vegas Institute for Advanced Dental Studies (LVI), one of the most rigorous cosmetic and neuromuscular dentistry programs in the United States.
How long has Dr. Desai practiced in Dublin?
Dr. Desai has practiced in Dublin, California for nearly twenty years, and has been a dentist for more than twenty-eight years overall.
What is LVI training?
The Las Vegas Institute for Advanced Dental Studies (LVI) is a post-graduate institution focused on cosmetic, neuromuscular, and full-mouth reconstructive dentistry. Dentists with LVI fellowship training are trained to plan smile design and bite (occlusion) together — a level of integration that most general-dentistry programs do not teach.
Is Dr. Desai an ADA member?
Yes. Dr. Desai is an active member of the American Dental Association and the California Dental Association, both of which require members to uphold strict ethical and continuing-education standards.