Professor Dasta received his B.Sc. in Pharmacy in 1974 from West Virginia University School of Pharmacy and M.Sc. and residency in Hospital Pharmacy from The Ohio State University (OSU) in 1976. He began his academic career in 1976 at OSU and developed one of the first practice sites and post-doctoral training programs in critical care pharmacy. He has trained eleven residents and nine fellows who are prominent practitioners, researchers, and leaders in the profession and the pharmaceutical industry.

Professor Dasta was a member of the Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM) council, the governing body of SCCM, from 2007-2010. He is a fellow of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy and the American College of Critical Care Medicine. SCCM honored him by creating the Joseph F. Dasta Critical Care Pharmacy Outcomes Research Grant in 2000. Professor Dasta received the 2010 SCCM Distinguished Investigator Award and was the first pharmacist to receive this honor. Professor Dasta was the recipient of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy Education Award in 2002 and the 2010 recipient of the Sustained Contributions to the Literature Award by American Society of Health-System Pharmacists. He serves on the editorial board of Critical Care Medicine and Annals of Pharmacotherapy. Professor Dasta has over 250 peer-reviewed publications, abstracts, brief communications, and book chapters on topics including sedation, analgesia, acute hypertension, hyponatremia, sepsis, acute kidney insufficiency, acute heart failure, and pharmacoeconomics and medication safety of acute care pharmaceuticals. He has also given over 250 lectures on various topics related to critical care and health outcomes.