Juan Araque has worked more than 20 years in the fields of leadership and management, education, community development, diversity, violence prevention and positive youth development. His interests include the research and design of public, private and non-profit system structures to support positive child and adolescent development, and robust child-adult-community relationship building. Araque is the lead author (along with Dr. Eugenia Weiss) of "Leadership with Impact: Preparing Health and Human Service Professionals in the Age of Innovation and Diversity" (Oxford University Press, 2019).

As executive director for the University of Southern California TRiO Programs, Araque oversaw the college access programs, which help motivate and support low-income and first-generation minority students through the academic pipeline from middle school to college. Prior to joining USC, he oversaw funding allocation, programming implementation and advocacy efforts for Orange County United Way. He has served on multiple boards, including the Orange County Business Council's Latino Educational Attainment Initiative; the Orange County Department of Education's Institutional Review Board; Jewish-Latino Roundtable; Orange County Workforce Investment Board, Health Funders Partnership of Orange County; and Orange County Emergency Food and Shelter Program. Additionally, he served for five years as a board member of the California Governor's Child Abduction Prevention Task Force (Amber Alert) and the California School/Law Enforcement Partnership. Araque led the implementation of the nationally recognized Youth Development Framework School-Based Pilot Program.

Araque has authored numerous reports and program evaluations in community resources and gaps, positive youth development, parent involvement, academic achievement, need assessments and community resource mapping.