Mehal is the Manager of Community Engaged Teaching and Learning at the Centre for Social Justice and Inclusion, UTS overseeing multi-award winning programs like UTS Shopfront and UTS SOUL Award. She has extensive experience in the community sector working with both women's and art's organisations, as well as a PhD in Communications from UTS.

Mehal's research focused on the representation of Arab and Muslim communities with particular focus on representation of masculinities in Australian film and television. She is the author of Heroes, Villains and the Muslim Exception published by Melbourne University Press. In her time in academia she published on race, gender, religion and pop culture.

Currently she works to embed social justice literacy through community engaged learning experiences, working closely with faculty and community to develop, design and implement these modules. She is also the deputy chair of Arts and Cultural Exchange and board and founding member of Hunar Arts x Conflict Symposia.