Times O.C. Writer Awarded Fellowship From Harvard

A Times Orange County staff writer is among 12 American journalists who have received Nieman Fellowships to study at Harvard University next school year.

Environmental writer Deborah Schoch will join Patrick McDonnell--a Times staff writer in Los Angeles--and 10 other newspaper and radio reporters from around the nation in 10 months of advanced study at Harvard. The appointments were announced Tuesday by the university.

Schoch, a staff writer with the Times since 1990 who has worked at the Orange County Edition since 1995, will spend the year studying conservation biology, environmental economics, urban planning and public policy.

Schoch was a staff reporter at the Rochester (N.Y.) Times-Union, the Burlington (Vt.) Free Press and the Ithaca (N.Y.) Journal. She is a 1975 graduate of Cornell University.

McDonnell, who writes about immigration, will study the history, economics and social aspects of immigration and assimilation.

Other fellows:

* Lori Olszewski, San Francisco Chronicle education writer.

* Carol Eisenberg, health policy reporter for Newsday.

* Bill Krueger, investigative reporter for The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C.

* Mary Kay Magistad, China correspondent for National Public Radio.

* David Molpus, workplace correspondent for National Public Radio based in Chapel Hill, N.C.

* Jim Morrill, chief political writer for The Charlotte Observer.

* Stephen Smith, health writer for The Miami Herald.

* Thrity Umrigar, feature writer for the Akron Beacon Journal.

* Michael Paul Williams, Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch columnist and reporter.

* Jerry Zremski, Buffalo News Washington correspondent.