Apply by January 19, 2024 for a fully funded, fulltime O'Brien Fellowship starting August 2024 and ending May 2025. We help journalists complete their dream project on such topics as environmental and racial justice, inequities in education, health care, housing, criminal justice and more. See our website and FAQs.

Applicants pitch ideas for deep-dive stories. We pick four U.S.-based journalists in March each year, supplying them with a $75,000 stipend, nine months’ time, reporting and travel expenses and help from 2-3 journalism students from Marquette University.

We accept remote or partial residency applications, but preference will be given to applicants who plan to live in the Milwaukee area. Residential fellows work mainly from offices in the O’Brien suite in the Diederich College of Communication at Marquette University. 

The application period starts Dec. 1. Consider contacting O'Brien Director Dave Umhoefer to pitch an idea or seek more information (david.umhoefer@marquette.edu).

Applicants must have at least five years of professional experience and produce journalism regularly as an employee or freelancer. Applicants may have experience with newspapers, radio, television, online publications, film production, podcasts, wire services, or magazines of general interest. There are no academic prerequisites.

Fellows must be residents of the U.S. The O’Brien Fellowship is open to stories of international interest, but is strongly focused on stories affecting U.S. audiences that can be reported primarily in America for publishers that should include a U.S.-based news outlet or outlets.