Justin Valentino

Justin earned his PhD from the Illinois Informatics Institute at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign under Prof. Zahra Mohaghegh, where he served as the lead graduate researcher and primary author on the National Science Foundation project “A Big Data-Theoretic Approach to Quantify Organizational Failure Mechanisms in Probabilistic Risk Assessment” (NSF Award No. 1535167), a five-year project led by Prof. Mohaghegh. His dissertation and subsequent publications pioneered the theorizing, modeling, and quantification of human and organizational factors—safety culture, training quality, human performance data, management processes, and organizational failure mechanisms—in Integrated Probabilistic Risk Assessment (I-PRA) of nuclear power plants. He also contributed to Level 3 PRA research, including offsite consequence modeling of socially vulnerable populations to support risk-informed emergency planning. While at SoTeRiA (2013–2020), he helped design, write, and secure funding for projects sponsored by the DOE, NSF, IAEA, and industry partners, and he continues to co-develop methodologies as a Research Affiliate.

Blending scientific depth with hands-on execution, Justin helps leadership teams and principal investigators gain clarity, remove systemic friction, secure resources, and achieve sustainable results through strategic visioning, process implementation, management system design, and targeted scientific advising.