Lori Ana Valentín - Founder @ Radiant Journey

Welcome to another Founder Wisdom podcast. We have Laurie-Anna Valentin with us today. She's a PhD, she's an analytical chemist in forensics, and she's a management catalyst also. Her company is called Radiant Journey. She's been at it for almost 5 years now, spent some time at IBM, spent some time at New York State Police as a forensic scientist. So, Lori, I'm glad to have you on. Can you tell us a bit more about yourself and what you've been up to?

Thank you so much for having me, Charles. So, um, thanks for that great introduction. So my background is analytical chemistry. I've applied that in intellectual property law, in forensic science, uh, working criminal casework. And, um, it was while I was doing that that I started to observe some different things related to vicarious trauma amongst civilian forensic staff. And so I started leaning in more towards, uh, providing resources to the crime lab and focusing on training. And when I shifted into that training piece, I found it was a niche that really worked well for me and that I really enjoyed. So after that, I moved into professional development full-time, and now I work with scientists and engineers and provide them with professional development.

That's interesting. Let's start with your early career, right? Because you started at IBM in patents and then went into the New York State Police. Did you always want to work in the New York State Police Force, or wasn't that the plan?

Yes, I had always wanted to work in forensics. And, you know, there are so many forensic TV shows, right? And, and everybody loves them. And I, I was someone who also enjoyed watching them. So I enjoyed chemistry and I thought that that would be a natural fit. When I was in high school, I took an aptitude test and I should— it said that I should be either a police officer or a chemist. So the forensic piece was the perfect blend of the two. Um, so after graduate school, a position opened up at the State Police Crime Lab at headquarters. In the seized drug section. So I was very fortunate in that I got that spot. I worked criminal cases for a few years, and then I moved into laboratory management.

And what was the difference between what we see on the TV and reality in terms of forensic analysis?

Everything. So, um, yes, the, um, the speed with which cases are, are resolved is much different. There are a lot more different pieces. There is so much more involved with chain of custody that you don't see behind the scenes. There's so much more involved with triaging evidence going into different sections. A lot more people work on the cases than they indicate in these shows. Um, but I will say Forensic Files, which is a pretty old one, is pretty accurate in, you know, how it presents. It's more of a documentary style.

Interesting. And tell me about your time there. Um, Isn't part of that job also like pretty traumatic? Doesn't it require some compartmentalization or whatever that word is? Because you see a lot of disturbing stuff. Like, how do you manage the mental health aspect of that?

That's a great question. Um, so prior to COVID, there weren't many resources available. It wasn't a topic that was talked about or really examined. And post-COVID, the focus on mental health just totally shifted. And there's been a lot more dialogue. That said, when I was at the lab, I personally found casework to at times be emotionally draining. So my move into management where I was a bit more separated from the cases, but still involved in, you know, the crime work was a good fit for me. It was a better fit for me. But at the time when I made that move into lab management, I sort of became a confidant to other civilian scientists. And that's when I started realizing I wasn't the only one. You know, I had a 20-year— I think he was a Navy veteran who was in our, you know, one of the sections, had been there 20 years managing and doing casework. And he told me he had you know, nightmares about cases that he had worked, homicides, you know, 20 years ago. And I thought, wow, there's really a need here. And so I worked with the commissioned officers, the major at our lab. So we had a civilian lab director and a major, captains, etc., who operated the lab. And so I worked with them, expressed the need, and got the laboratory involved in two studies in 2019 at the time on vicarious trauma.

What cases have you resolved that were particularly complex or puzzling, you know? And which one have been the most rewarding ones? I guessing like serial killers or rapers, it's pretty, uh, rewarding to resolve that because they cause massive damages to the civilian population. So tell me about some of your favorite cases?

So I, I won't go into detail about the cases, um, but I will say that I was assigned to the, uh, seized drugs or controlled substances section. So I did work some particularly large, uh, drug cases, um, federal cases, state cases, local cases, um, things of that nature. I will say, so you're referring to kind of these big type of cases, right? These big homicides or serial homicides, things of that nature. Those are addressed, you know, sort of laboratory-wide, so you would have multiple sections working on it. So I would touch a case like that if there was drug evidence, right? Because my specific niche was seized drugs or controlled substances, but it would be a massive team effort. And at times you would have people working around the clock if, you know, there was, you know, for example, someone on the run and we have evidence coming in and we need, you know, fingerprint analysis, we need touch DNA, DNA, things of that nature really expedited. So you would have something like that. But the other piece is that when you have a large case like that, you have so much evidence. Say, let us say, for example, a triple homicide. There is going to be a tremendous amount of evidence to be collected at the scene. And that evidence is— and also we should note these scenes are not clean. They are not glamorous. They are not like what you see on TV. They are dirty. They are difficult to, you know, find the evidence and things of that nature. So it is a massive effort by multiple agencies. And then what they would do is meet with the laboratory and say, OK, we have all this evidence we have collected, thousands upon thousands of pieces of evidence. We need to triage that for the most probative, probative evidence, right? So what is going to actually help us solve this case? What is most likely to? And what is going to be most probative in court? So then you basically prioritize that evidence into different tiers. And you could have one piece of evidence go through multiple different analyses through different sections. So that is kind of a broader scope. One of the things that I was most intrigued by when I was in laboratory management—so I helped support the Special Victims Unit with their reporting. So I worked with investigators there, but I also worked on the legislative response. For the sex assault kits. So many years ago, legislation was passed kind of with the Me Too movement, you know, across the country for extending the time that these kits are stored, right? Because sometimes a victim may change their mind years later and want to have their case investigated and prosecuted. So I was a part of the team that determined, you know, projecting out 20 years, How much evidence will there be? Where could we possibly store it? What is a typical case going to look like? That sort of thing. So that was a very interesting experience because it took me outside of chemistry and the typical crime laboratory work. And it almost— I almost had to put on like an engineering hat and build these models to project that space and knowing how impactful that is going to be for the residents of our state. It was very rewarding.

Yeah. And what's striking here is that if a victim changes their mind 10 years later, it means that they still carry that burden, right? And they still want justice 10 years later. So they've been carrying that heavy load for 10 years. So it just goes to show like the damage of what this crime does to women. I had my daughter a month and a half ago, and the day she was born, I was watching this documentary on Netflix about like the feminicides here in Mexico. And what was striking with me, and that goes on to the last point you were mentioning about like how messy it is to invest, to investigate these crimes, there was these piles and piles and piles of papers like in a warehouse, right, of like unresolved feminicides. And I was like, what if we could feed like as a start, right, just take pictures of it and feed it to an AI Um, pretty sure you thought about these things as well. Like, how can technology and AI help us resolve these crimes faster is my question for you. And how, how advanced is the scene right now in the forensics department in New York, which might be one of the most advanced in the world?

So, um, first of all, congratulations on the birth of your daughter. That's wonderful. Um, so I, uh I will say forensic labs are extremely slow to implement new technology. And the reason for that is because there is— there are so many layers of regulatory bodies, particularly accreditation standards, that require a lot of different hoops to jump through in order to implement, say, like a new instrument or a new method in the laboratory. So I anticipate AI implementation in for working forensic crime labs to be slow because of those restrictive frameworks. That said, there are private forensic labs, and of course there is academic research where this can be explored more. I definitely see a tremendous amount of potential with AI for so many different areas in forensic work. For example, developing new methodology. For example, as I explained those layers, that triaging, you know, if you can program AI to have a framework of how, you know, a crime is investigated, what type of evidence is more probative, then you could inventory all that evidence, put it into, you know, the, into the system and you could get, you know, it would save a tremendous amount of time to have a suggestion of this is how you should, you know, prioritize this evidence. This is what is probative. This is what may not be. And then, of course, have that checked, and then it would expedite the process significantly. I could see it providing a lot of value in data analysis, report writing, investigative ideas as well. So I think that there could be a lot of potential there, but I will add that caveat that it is very, very slow to be to implement new technology into these labs, right?

I guess, like, where would you start, right? Because my brain was like a robot to pick up the evidence and to put it on a sort of a mill that moves, and then a triage from there, and then a chemical analysis, and that chain of things. But just the robot picking up things is incredibly complex. We've seen companies like Figures and, uh, that— yeah, I was watching a stream of their robot, their humanoid, the other day for 8 hours triaging stuff, you know, and it sounded silly. It was quite kind of mesmerizing, but just doing that, the robot, it's incredibly complex for robot to triage stuff. I guess we could still use humans on that level, but I guess the lowest hanging fruit would be to take all of that material, all of that data, and store it in a database. That seems to be the lowest hanging fruit, right? Like taking all the existing material, all the paper stuff, all the data, and digitizing it. And then if the AI has full memory and full context on all of that data, it can start interlinking points, right? And potentially catching criminals, serial criminals faster, right? Do you, do you think that is true?

Well, there's certainly potential there for that, and everything is already electronically stored, um, all of the data, and You know, to your point about sort of linking connections there, there is a section within the laboratory called DNA database where it collects, you know, DNA from convicted felons. There's a specification of the type of crime, and that is then put into the system and matches can be made for cold cases or unsolved cases. And then of course, a forensic scientist will go ahead and do that comparative analysis. And report out the results. But in terms of investigative leads, that's a really interesting approach and idea where you could take case information, especially cold cases, unsolved cases, and feed it into a system that could potentially make some connections there.

Or patterns, right? Like the victim was there at this time, and generally because that happened, this may mean that this crime, not necessarily was done by that person, but it may be that type of crime, and that, that should be a new trail that should be investigated. AIs are incredibly good at finding patterns that you humans can't, right? And I'm thinking— I'm not sure why, but I'm thinking of Palantir as a company. I know that they were in police departments, but not on the investigation type, uh, type of line. Is, is that the company that's been trying to help at that level? Is, is that like the de facto company that would, uh, make the most sense at that level?

So I have to be honest, I'm not familiar with that company and the work that they do, unfortunately, uh, so I, I can't speak to that. But I do know that there are investigative branches that do that type of work. So what you're suggesting would certainly help expedite their investigative work.

Yeah, Palantir is like a defense company, quote unquote. They've been integrated with various police departments. I can think of Florida or Louisiana for sure. And they just, they're notorious for deploying engineers in governmental departments to solve their problems with technology, right? And nowadays there's a very strong component of AI. What do you do at Radiant? Tell me a bit more about that company of yours.

So through Radiant Journey, I do consult, I do forensics consulting, of course, but I also, my main focus is on coaching and training for scientists and engineers. So I provide training with things like time management, learning how to be a manager, providing them with the connection between the technical and the soft skill side. That's sort of where I come into play. I particular— my main focus is on managers. So people who are stepping out of an individual contributor role into a management role and helping to teach them how to manage people, because I find that most organizations in general, but also STEM, don't have that transition really well paved out for their staff. So oftentimes you'll see people going in without that skill set. It's a totally different skill set, people versus technical contributions. So I make, I connect the dots for them.

Why did you decide to start that company? I mean, and NYPD, I'm not sure how well they pay or how good are the conditions there, but what made you decide to want to launch your own companies and not be on a payroll?

Yeah, so I was with the New York State Police, which is separate from NYPD. NYPD is the New York metro area, and then State Police is the rest of, of the state, although they do have a presence in the city as well. Um, so I took it very slow, uh, with that transition. I, um, continued, you know, working for the State Police while starting to do the consulting work on the side. And I eventually did leave, uh, the State Police, uh, to actually move on to a small local college as the director of professional development. So I felt that would help me build my skill sets toward the ultimate goal of having my own business. And, um, you know, I really enjoyed my work with the State Police, and I continued working with them even after I left, providing some consulting work and collaborative work with them. But the reason that I left, even though it was really secure, stable, you know, good salary, promotional pathway, pension, right, all these great benefits, but I wanted to grow. I want— and I had found that I maxed my growth with the organization for what I wanted to do, which was moving more into the training. And they were great. They had me— I was doing training for Trace Evidence. I was managing the internship program. They were letting me tackle the things that I wanted to, but it just wasn't enough. I wanted to be doing that 100% of the time. So, so I left on good terms and built out that skill set. In a different way with a different company and now finally going solo with that.

And what big problems in leadership do you see in STEM organizations like NASA, Merck, Estée Lauder? Like, what big problems do you solve and at what level of the organization is it?

So I help at multiple levels and I will say organizationally I think the biggest— there are two. Well, I guess I can boil it down to one. The biggest challenge that I see in STEM with analytical thinkers is a lack of emotional intelligence. And I think within that, I can also say a tendency to overthink. And that can be a huge problem where a lot of the work that I do in terms of individual work with people is teaching them how to turn off that analytical brain. Because it is so powerful and it's what makes us good at what we do. We find problems, we catch murderers, right? We're doing all of these things because we're thinking at a highly logical, highly intellectual, analytical way. That's great for work. Outside of work, not so much, right? We don't want to be second-guessing ourselves in our personal lives and in our relationships. We don't want to turn it on ourselves. And look for problems within ourselves and develop limiting beliefs that can affect how we then engage with the world. So that's one area that I work within. And then the emotional intelligence piece, I find that to be the root cause of a lot of challenges, communication challenges. You have these super analytical people, super brilliant people who just can't connect with each other or communicate with each other because they're not understanding that that person maybe has a different communication style or information processing style. And we need to be able to learn that, understand that so we can match it.

So how do you teach that to super analytical people, even sometimes autistic people? Like, how do you teach that to them? Is it a multi-month program? Is it workshops? Is it digital material? Is it AI prompts? How do you actually get them to learn fast about EQ?

The most effective thing that I do is that I make comparisons to technical things. So for example, I'll make the comparison to like a scientific— or I'm sorry, a chemical system. And we'll talk about the reagents and we'll talk about what are the limiting reagents. Do we have any invisible limiting reagents? And it turns out that thing is communication or emotional intelligence. And showing them the importance of that, providing what I like to call chemisms. You know, I compare the periodic table to our personalities. You know, there are different blocks on the periodic table, which are groups of elements that have similar behaviors and characteristics. So we are, as people, are also in our own blocks, right? How do you communicate across those blocks with other people? So when I provide that sort of comparison to something that I know their analytical brain gets, that's when I can get buy-in. But to answer further with your question, I do that work with them in person. I can do it in workshops depending on how intensive it is. It could be over months. I do coaching programs that span months. I can do— I do workshops with groups, you know, it depends on what their goals are, in person or virtual.

Interesting. And the programs, for example, if I would buy one from you, uh, is there like packages? Is it days of workshop? Do you actually fly there? Um, yeah, what do your packages look like versus what your competitors offer?

So I don't know any other PhD chemists who are doing professional development and management training, um, but, uh, so I can't speak to competitors in that specific field. But, um, yes, I I go out, I fly out to clients. I also, I do virtual. I just did one for a national lab virtually. I'm working with another national lab, um, all of that is virtual. I'll be flying out to Chicago in August to do some in-person work for a client, um, through a conference. So it just depends on what their needs are, um, and my availability, and then, you know, we decide what works best.

Interesting. What are your top goals for this year? What do you want to achieve?

I would like to increase my client base, and I would like to really, um, make an impact on beginning to shift that mindset in STEM, uh, really starting to see more like-minded people. I would love to see more people like myself doing trainings like this and really just reaching a broader audience and shifting that mindset throughout STEM industries.

And what's your go-to-market plan for that? Typically, how do you get new clients? Is it mostly referrals, or do you have, um, cold pipeline, uh, to bring on new clients?

It's all through my network, um, so it's all through word of mouth at this time. That said, I am taking an AI Mastery and Marketing course so that I can start to automate that and more effectively reach a broader audience.

Interesting. And your company itself, is it just you? Do you want to scale it, hire other employees? Uh, and also like, how do you interact with AI? Do you even need like new employees, or can it be you pretty much and a bunch of AIs forever?

So right now it's me. Um, I have had other facilitators and content developers in the past. I do collaborate with others as well. I think AI can be tremendously helpful in the areas that I mentioned and also in helping with content development. But in terms of facilitating workshops, definitely would love to expand the team and have more people, more like-minded scientists doing the work. I love that.

Where can people find out more about you, Laurie? I'm on LinkedIn. There you go. So I guess people can find out your name, Laurie Anna Valentine, founder of Radiant Journey.