In 2019 he was awarded the Astronomical Society of the Pacific Arthur B.C. Walker II Award for his research and commitment to promoting diversity.[2] In 2021 he was awarded the American Physical Society Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize for outstanding contributions to fundamental chemical physics and spectroscopy associated with asteroids and comets, and for exemplary teaching at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, as well as lifelong service and inspiration to a diverse community.[3]
In 1974, one of Jackson's colleagues, a professor of chemistry at Howard University, died suddenly.[5] Jackson agreed to teach his course for the rest of the term and was subsequently appointed to a joint position in chemistry and physics.[5] Here he began working on laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) to study the rovibronic coupling in cyano radicals.[11] He was the first person to demonstrate LIF could be used to study molecular photodissociation.[13] He primarily studied comets using satellites ground-based telescopes, using experimental data and theoretical predictions to establish how the free radicals inside comets form. Despite having left Goddard Space Flight Center, Jackson served as team leader for the International Ultraviolet Explorer telescope, which observed Halley's Comet.[8] He joined University of California, Davis in 1985 and was promoted to Distinguished Professor in 1998.[6] The Jackson laboratory ("Jackson's Photon Crusaders") developed tunable lasers which could be used to detect and characterise free radicals.[11] These included excimer lasers, nitrogen-pumped lasers and an Alexandrite laser.[11] By building laser systems in the laboratory, Jackson helped to establish the excited states of molecules that are present in planetary atmospheres. The experiments consisted of one laser for the photodissociation of the parent molecule, and another laser to excite the free radical into an excited state. When the excited molecule fluoresced back to the ground state, the fluorescence was captured in a photomultiplier tube.[11] He has investigated the photochemistry of carbon monoxide, nitrogen and carbon dioxide.[14] His laser systems exploit resonant four-wave mixing, which allows them to photodissociate gases observed in planetary atmospheres.[14] He also showed that it is possible to ionise the resulting atomic fragments using a velocity imaging time-of-flight mass spectrometer.[14]
Jackson has campaigned for equity, diversity and inclusion in science since he started his career.[6] He was one of the founders of the National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE).[6][15] The organization began to promote and award minority scientists and engineers, as well as encouraging high school students to consider studying science or engineering. It was supported by Ted Kennedy and the National Science Foundation.[8] Jackson served as NOBCChE's first treasurer from 1973.[17] He stated that he was inspired to start the NOBCChE after attending a meeting of the American Chemical Society, and seeing no African Americans there.[17] He has served in various capacities for the NOBCChE, attending every annual meeting other than one (San Diego, 1999) in protest of the 1996 California Proposition 209.[17] He provided evidence to congress in an effort to increase research funding to historically black colleges and universities.[6] When he arrived at U.C. Davis, only two students from underrepresented minorities had ever earned chemistry PhDs there. While at UC Davis, he secured funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and increased the department's minority student population to about 15% of the academic cohort.[8] Jackson was known for bringing students and researchers to his laboratory "who were the stones the builders rejected, and he made them the cornerstones for future scientific research".[11]
Jackson, Wiiliam M. (1954). "A method for growing barium titanate single crystals". Journal of the American Chemical Society. 76 (3): 940–941. doi:10.1021/ja01632a107.
Jackson, William M.; Conley, Robert T. (1964). "High temperature oxidative degradation of phenol–formaldehyde polycondensates". Journal of Applied Polymer Science. 8 (5): 2163–2193. doi:10.1002/app.1964.070080516.