Valencia-Romero earned his Ph.D. in systems engineering in 2021 at the Stevens Institute of Technology.  Prior to this, he earned his master’s and bachelor’s degrees in mechanical engineering at the Recinto Universitario de Mayagüez in Puerto Rico and the Universidad del Atlántico in Colombia, respectively. Valencia-Romero worked at the Colombian Navy-run Science and Technology Corporation for the Development of Naval, Maritime, and Riverine Industries (COTECMAR) where he helped lay out and design machinery, propulsion, and piping systems in ships. Before joining the Roux Institute, he completed a postdoctoral stint at Carnegie Mellon University, where he applied qualitative research and design thinking to identify opportunities for artificial intelligence and machine learning in the management of capital projects.