Araya Baker is a therapist, columnist, and social policy researcher.

As a therapist, Araya supports individuals and couples navigating concerns around addiction, aging, cancer, disability, family estrangement, grief and trauma, life purpose and self-actualization, neurodivergence, prejudice and racism, relationships, reproductive health and family-building, and sexual health and HIV.

Araya has worked as a public health educator, practitioner, and researcher in a variety of settings, ranging from crisis lines, drop-in centers, and public schools, to sexual health clinics, an autism research center, and campus disability, LGBTQ+, and multicultural centers. Additionally, Araya has taught both undergraduates and graduate students, and supervised counselors-in-training at the graduate level.

For over a decade, Araya also has leveraged writing to promote lifelong learning and democratize access to applied critical theory/social philosophy beyond academia. Their social commentary and public scholarship have been featured in The Washington Post, HuffPost, Psychology Today, Teen Vogue, EdPost, Vice, Buzzfeed, The New York Times, Essence Magazine, and myriad indie/regional outlets.

Araya earned an Ed.M. in Human Development from Harvard as an Equity Fellow, an M.Phil.Ed. in Counseling from the University of Pennsylvania, where they received the Award for Excellence in Promoting Diversity & Inclusion, and a B.A. in English from Tufts, where they were a Tisch Scholar and engaged African & Caribbean literature, Black Arts Movement poetry, queer Black feminism, gospel music, Southern studies, and Swahili.