Announcement from Investigative Deputy Editor David Fallis, Investigative Managing Editor Jeff Leen and Rapid Response Editor Eric Rich:

We are thrilled to announce that Nicole Dungca will be joining The Washington Post as a reporter on the Investigative Unit’s long-term projects staff.

Nicole comes to us from The Boston Globe, where for the last two and a half years she has been on the Spotlight Team. Nicole helped expose secret court hearings that allowed thousands of criminal defendants to have their cases dismissed free of public scrutiny. Those stories, and a Globe lawsuit, led the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to order that the hearings be recorded and that the court system release data on the outcomes. Nicole worked on another Spotlight Team investigation that found that investors and companies cashing in on the state’s new legalized marijuana industry were attempting to defy regulations. And, she was part of a Spotlight Team examination of racism in Boston, which included counting by hand how many black fans attended Red Sox games. That seven-part series was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

Nicole previously covered transportation for the Globe. An anonymous tip about a homeless man beaten by a security guard at a train station led Nicole and a colleague to stake out the facility where the alleged attack occurred. They soon located the victim and witnesses — and others who also said they had been abused by the guard. As a result, transit police arrested the guard and the security company was fired. For that reporting, Nicole and her colleagues were named finalists for the Livingston Award.

Before joining the Globe in 2014, Nicole spent five years as an education beat reporter at the Oregonian. There, she documented a tumultuous teachers’ strike vote, attempts by the school district to cut classes for disabled students and the hiring of a school administrator who was under investigation at another district.

Nicole grew up outside San Francisco and graduated from Brown University with a degree in English literature. She is the senior vice president of the Asian American Journalists Association. In her spare time, she loves to run, enjoys hiking and roots tirelessly for the San Francisco Giants. She is also a connoisseur of Filipino cuisine and said she plans to eat at D.C.’s Bad Saint restaurant as often as possible.

Please join us in welcoming Nicole to the newsroom. She starts Jan. 13.