Monika Desai, MD, FAAPMR is an Assistant Professor of Rehabilitation Medicine at Columbia University Medical Center's Department of Rehabilitation and Regenerative Medicine. She specializes in treating pediatric individuals with physical impairments and injuries with a child and family-centered approach.

Dr. Monika Desai received her undergraduate degree from the University of California, San Diego and her medical degree from St. George's University School of Medicine. She completed her residency in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, as well as her fellowship training in Pediatric Rehabilitation, at Montefiore Medical Center/Albert Einstein School of Medicine. Dr. Desai is board certified in both Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and Pediatric Rehabilitation. She is fluent in Spanish.

Dr. Desai works with children and their families using an interdisciplinary approach to address prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and management of congenital or childhood-onset physical impairments. Her areas of clinical interest include cerebral palsy (adult and pediatric), spasticity management including botulinum toxin injections, stroke, brain injury, concussion management, spina bifida, developmental delay, muscular dystrophy, and spinal cord injury. Using this multidisciplinary approach, she works with Physical, Occupational, and Speech therapists, as well as Prosthetists and Orthotists. Together, they help to provide appropriate therapeutic services, bracing, prosthetics, assistive devices, and/or adaptive equipment to help improve the child's anatomical alignment, maximize function, and optimize their quality of life.