Jennifer Kirwin and Margarita DiVall mark 25 years at Northeastern, shaping pharmacy education and mentoring future health care leaders.
Jennifer Kirwin and Margarita DiVall both began their undergraduate studies at Northeastern in 1993.
Both earned doctor of pharmacy degrees and returned to the university in 2000 as faculty members in the Bouvé College of Health Sciences. This year, they celebrate 25 years of service to the Northeastern community.
“Our friendship really evolved as we became faculty colleagues,” says DiVall, now Bouvé’s senior associate dean for faculty affairs and belonging and clinical professor of pharmacy and health systems sciences. “We were 25 years old when we started our jobs, so imposter syndrome was real. We had to rely on each other for support and mentorship.”
Today, the two work closely together on strategic planning and implementing the mission of the college by supporting its programs, students and faculty.
“The university gave us this amazing opportunity for personal and professional growth,” DiVall says.
Having immigrated to the U.S. from Belarus in 1992 with limited English, DiVall says she was initially overwhelmed by the change and uncertainty. But Northeastern gave her the education and confidence to pursue a faculty position and succeed in her career.
“We had so much opportunity for growth within the organization that I didn’t feel like in order for me to continue to grow, I had to go someplace else,” she says.
Kirwin, now Bouvé’s senior associate dean of academic affairs and clinical professor of pharmacy and health systems science, grew up in New Hampshire. Over the course of 25 years, she was able to experience three distinct roles at the university.
“I feel really fortunate that I was able to stay in one place and develop a relationship with one organization, but still explore and try different things,” she says.
In 1999, DiVall and Kirwin completed their pharmacy residencies at Boston hospitals. At that time, DiVall says, pharmacy education was shifting from bachelor’s programs to doctor of pharmacy degrees. Northeastern expanded its PharmD program by hiring a cohort of young faculty, including DiVall and Kirwin.
Initially, they taught students in clinical settings during their ambulatory and internal medicine rotations.
Kirwin established an ambulatory pharmacological practice at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She provided services to patients focusing on chronic disease management, smoking cessation and diabetes education, while teaching students.
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DiVall was a clinical pharmacist in an internal medicine setting at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
“This practice model that we had still persists to this day,” DiVall says. “We have faculty in the School of Pharmacy now who have practice sites where they spend time providing patient care to patients with their students.”
On campus, DiVall taught courses on infectious diseases, covering treatments for conditions like pneumonia and antibiotic dosing.
“As we continued working together, our friendship definitely grew,” DiVall says.
Both got married around the same time and attended each other’s weddings. When the children followed, Kirwin and DiVall often talked about parenting and the challenges of balancing professional life with motherhood.
“Throughout the last 25 years, we have often come to each other for advice,” DiVall says. “It is hard to decide whether to call it peer mentorship or friendship, but having parallel careers and milestones in our personal lives has led to a friendship.”
About seven years into her academic career, Kirwin transitioned to classroom teaching. She taught courses on therapeutics and comprehensive disease management, pharmacy based immunizations and the Skills Lab course series. Kirwin led the curriculum committee and later becamethe program director for the PharmD program.
“Most of my scholarship at that point was focused on curriculum revision and revisions to the clinical skills lab courses, testing either new exercises or new curriculum pieces, how well they worked, the impact on student learning or coordinating with skills lab instructors from all over the country on multi-site projects,” she says.
Meanwhile, DiVall developed an interest in assessment and accreditation work. She served as director of assessment and later assistant dean for assessment for the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences from 2010 to 2019.
That year, she stepped into the role of associate dean, overseeing faculty affairs.
“That portfolio changed a little bit over time to incorporate what we call belonging work.” DiVall says. “I’ve transitioned away from teaching into supporting our faculty. I oversee anything from recruiting faculty to supporting and promoting them.”
In 2019, Kirwin became associate dean of academic affairs at Bouve. In this role, she coordinates academic programs for undergraduate, graduate and doctoral levels and oversees student advising, co-op curriculum and operations as well as the simulation center.
Over their decades at Northeastern, both have witnessed — and contributed to — its transformation into a global university system.
“Within the School of Pharmacy, our group was a big part of making sure the curriculum was state-of-the-art, that we were responding to changes in pharmacy practice and in health care,” Kirwin says.
“The ambitions of the university really require my position to be creative,” she says. “I get to take what works well in our college and think about how we can bring it to new groups of students and new locations in the network.”
Health care practitioners, she says, are expected to work in interprofessional teams.
“We are really trying to continue to integrate that into all the programs, make sure there’s experiences, seminars and simulations that let the students learn those techniques, practice them and be ready to take them out into the real world,” Kirwin says.
Though their roles have shifted from direct instruction to administrative leadership, DiVall believes their work continues to have a profound impact. Students who benefit from their work go on to provide care to patients, shape health care policy or advance research.
“The impact that we have is huge,” DiVall says. “I think it’s a blessing to have such an impact even though some days are long and some work is hard, but that is what keeps us going.”
Adding another layer of meaning to their Northeastern journey, both Kirwin and DiVall now watch their daughters pursue their own studies at the university.
“It’s just amazing to see that legacy continue,” DiVall says.