Actually, this is pretty easy with Bugzilla hooks. Where the extension code needs to go will depend on what version you are using, because this is a capability that's rapidly developing.
In Bugzilla 3.6.1, the current version, if you wanted to call your extension Local, you would create a file extensions/Local/Extension.pm.
http://www.bugzilla.org/docs/3.6/en/html/api/Bugzilla/Extension.html is the overview of the whole extension system.
The hook you want to use for this is bug_end_of_update, which is called in Bugzilla/Bug.pm after the object is changed but before it is written to the database.
For what you're doing, you should probably check changes to see whether bug_status has changed. If so, update bug to set the owner to the reporter, and add that change to changes.
The main developers of Bugzilla can usually be found on #mozwebtools on irc.mozilla.org, drop in and chat them up about the particulars if my answer isn't enough to get you rolling.