Dr. Mecartney has created outreach programs for K-12 students and developed summer programs for middle school teachers from low-income communities. She has had extensive involvement in the UC Irvine California Alliance for Minority Participation, and was the founder of the Alliance for Graduate Education Program (a nine-campus consortium) and the UC Irvine Fastrack to the Professoriate. Both of these were designed to advance minorities and women into graduate level engineering.