Christine Willmsen joined the investigations team of The Seattle Times in 2002. A year later, she was co-reporter of the series "Coaches who prey," which revealed how school districts and the state allowed coaches with a history of sexual misconduct to continue working with young athletes in schools and private clubs. The series was a 2004 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in public service. It won the Scripps Howard Foundation's Public Service Award, the Heywood Broun Award, and other awards.

As a reporter at the Dayton Daily News, she was a Pulitzer finalist and an IRE winner in 2002 for a series about the influx of foreign athletes into America's amateur athletic programs.

Willmsen also worked as a reporter for the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier in Iowa and is a graduate of Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa.