This article is the sixth installment in the seven-part series One Year Later: Larry Nassar And The Women Who Made Us Listen, commemorating the seven days women stood in a Lansing, Michigan, courtroom last year and faced their abuser, former USA Gymnastics and Michigan State trainer Larry Nassar. One Year Later was produced by reporter Alanna Vagianos. Read more installments: One |Two | Three | Four | Five | Seven

Marisa Kwiatkowski had just enrolled in business school when she got the tip that would ultimately expose a serial abuser and bring to light one of the largest cases of willful institutional negligence in modern American history.

But today, a year after the sentencing of the criminal she helped to expose, she doesnt think much about the grueling course load that accompanied months of difficult reporting and painful interviews with dozens of sexual assault survivors. Instead, she remembers the connections made between survivors, and the gratitude she felt to be trusted with their stories.

The 34-year-old is an investigative reporter at The Indianapolis Star, the paper that published the first investigation of USA Gymnastics failure to report accusations of sexual abuse and, later, the first story to directly implicate Michigan State University doctor Larry Nassar of serial sexual misconduct. Kwiatkowski joined the investigative team at the Star in 2013, where she uncovered abuse and neglect of vulnerable Americans in the welfare and social services systems. Shed just committed to earning her MBA when, while investigating why Indiana high schools hadnt reported instances of school officials having sex with underage students to state authorities, a source suggested she look into USA Gymnastics handling of allegations of sexual abuse.

She and colleagues Tim Evans and Mark Alesia learned that the athletic organization practiced a policy that effectively suppressed allegations of sexual abuse and that young women had suffered deeply as a result. Within weeks of the subsequent investigative report, titled Out of Balance , a woman named Rachael Denhollander approached the Star with specific allegations against Nassar, a former team physician for USAG.