[1] Jackson was born March 1, 1956, in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, to a Seneca father and a white mother.

[9] After working briefly in the education department of the American Chemical Society she decided to return to school at the University of Texas at Austin.

[9] Jackson joined the Catalysis and Chemical Technologies department of the Energy and Environment sector at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1991.

[2] She has studied heterogeneous catalysis with an emphasis on identifying catalysts that can enable production of liquid fuels from non-petroleum sources.

[9] In 2007, she became founder and manager of the International Chemical Threat Reduction Department in the Global Security Center at Sandia.

[3] During the three-year period following her election, she focused on expanding international collaboration, visiting more than 20 countries on five continents to meet with chemists and chemical engineers, many of them women.

[19] In 2012, she received the AAAS Award for Science Diplomacy[20] "for her ongoing commitment to international science cooperation to prevent the theft and diversion of chemicals through the establishment of the Chemical Security Engagement Program and for developing, nurturing, and advancing careers of scientists worldwide, with a special emphasis on women scientists in the Middle East and Southeast Asia.