Valencia was inspired to apply for post-graduate programs and was accepted into Harvard University as a doctoral student.
[1][5] In 2006, Valencia's first major publication, "Internal Structure of Massive Terrestrial Planets", proposed the first mass-radius relationship for rocky exoplanets that associated mass, radius, and internal structure of solid planets more massive than Earth.
[6] Recognizing that human interest in the habitability of extra-solar planets drives much of their investigation, and that plate tectonics plays an important role in life on Earth, another 2007 publication, "Inevitability of Plate Tectonics on Super-Earths", was the first published investigation to propose that larger-massed terrestrial planets should experience plate tectonics due to thinner, weaker lithospheres and higher stresses.
", published 2019, explores improved methods of predicting the outcome of planetary collisions thought to be important in the last stages of planet formation.
The methodology identifies variables needing further investigation to build better predictive models as large ratio of target to impactor masses and low velocities.