Two dozen science and engineering researchers at universities across the nation have been awarded a total of $15 million in fellowships from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

The 24 fellowships are each worth $125,000 a year for five years. The grants are the largest unrestricted non-governmental research program in the U.S. for technically-oriented young college faculty.

The fellowships were awarded to innovative studies in a wide variety of technical fields, from deep-space cosmology to mammalian brain research to computer graphics. The recipients are from 13 states.

The Los Altos, Calif.-based Packard Foundation also retroactively granted 80 fellowship award winners from 1994 to 1997 additional funds to raise their original grants to match the new $125,000-a-year level.

The foundation has awarded $125 million in research fellowships to 224 researchers since 1998.