William M. Jackson (chemist) facts for kids

Bill Jackson at 2022 NOBCChE Meeting

William Morgan Jackson (born September 24, 1936) is a very important scientist. He is a professor of chemistry at the University of California, Davis. He is a leader in a field called astrochemistry, which studies chemicals in space.

Dr. Jackson's work helps us understand comets. He also developed ways to use lasers to study the air around planets. He is a member of many important science groups. Besides his research, he is known for helping and encouraging more people from minority groups to join science. He even helped start a group called the National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE).

In 2019, he won the Arthur B.C. Walker II Award for his research and for helping make science more diverse. In 2021, he received the Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize. This award was for his amazing work in understanding chemicals in space, especially around asteroids and comets. It also recognized his great teaching and his lifelong effort to inspire many different people in science.

Early Life and Challenges

William Morgan Jackson was born on September 24, 1936, in Birmingham, Alabama. His parents were William Morgan and Claudia H. Jackson. He grew up during a time when society was segregated, meaning people of different races were kept apart.

Part of his childhood was spent in an area of Birmingham called Dynamite Hill. This place was often targeted by the Ku Klux Klan during the Civil rights movement. His father, who went to Tuskegee University, owned a taxi company and taught auto mechanics. His mother worked for the U.S. government.

When he was nine years old, Jackson got polio. This illness made him miss a whole year of school.

His Journey in Education

After finishing tenth grade, Jackson went to Morehouse College early. He received a full scholarship to study there. At first, he thought about studying mathematics. But after meeting a chemistry professor named Henry Cecil McBay, he decided to study chemistry instead.

He graduated from Morehouse in 1956. He then applied to several graduate schools. One school, Northwestern University, told him they had already given their three scholarships for African American students.

Eventually, he moved to Washington, D.C.. He got a job and lived with his cousin. He studied at the Catholic University of America, where he earned a special research scholarship. During his studies, he worked at the Harry Diamond Laboratories. There, he studied molten salt compounds, which are salts that have been melted into a liquid.

In his last year of PhD studies, his wife became pregnant. Jackson took a break from school to earn money. He worked at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. He later returned to the Catholic University of America to finish his degree. He earned his PhD in 1961.

After his PhD, he worked at Lockheed Martin. He studied materials used to protect missiles when they re-enter Earth's atmosphere. He then went back to the National Institute of Standards and Technology. There, he researched how light energy affects chemical structures. He looked at how radiation impacted coatings on space vehicles.

Exploring Space Through Chemistry

In 1964, Dr. Jackson joined the Goddard Space Flight Center. This is where he became very interested in free radicals found in comets. Free radicals are special atoms or molecules with an unpaired electron, making them very reactive.

He suggested using a satellite called the International Ultraviolet Explorer to look for comets. Using the Haystack Observatory, he measured water coming from comets. In 1969, he taught and researched at the University of Pittsburgh for a year. He studied how electrons hitting molecules could be detected.

A year later, he returned to Goddard Space Flight Center. There, he created a system to find free radicals using laser beams.

In 1974, Dr. Jackson started working at Howard University. He began using a method called laser-induced fluorescence (LIF). This method uses lasers to study how molecules behave. He was the first person to show that LIF could be used to study how molecules break apart when light hits them.

He mostly studied comets using satellites and telescopes on Earth. He used experiments and predictions to figure out how free radicals form inside comets. Even after leaving Goddard, he led the team for the International Ultraviolet Explorer telescope. This telescope observed Halley's Comet.

Dr. Jackson joined the University of California, Davis in 1985. He became a Distinguished Professor in 1998. His lab, nicknamed "Jackson's Photon Crusaders," developed special tunable lasers. These lasers could find and study free radicals.

His team built laser systems to understand the excited states of molecules in planetary atmospheres. They used one laser to break apart a parent molecule. Then, another laser would excite the free radical. When the excited molecule glowed, the light was captured. He studied the chemistry of carbon monoxide, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide.

In 1996, The Planetary Society named an asteroid (4322) Billjackson in his honor. He led the Department of Chemistry at University of California, Davis in 2000. He retired in 2006 but has continued his research and mentoring students. In 2013, he became the Emile A. Dickenson Professor. In 2019, a special issue of the Journal of Physical Chemistry was dedicated to him.

Helping Others in Science

Dr. Jackson has worked hard to make science fair and open to everyone. He helped start the National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE). This group helps and celebrates minority scientists and engineers. It also encourages high school students to study science or engineering.

He was the first treasurer of NOBCChE starting in 1973. He said he was inspired to start the group after going to a meeting of the American Chemical Society and seeing no African Americans there. He has attended almost every NOBCChE meeting. He even gave information to Congress to help get more research money for historically black colleges and universities.

When he arrived at U.C. Davis, only two students from underrepresented minority groups had earned chemistry PhDs there. While at UC Davis, he got funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. He helped increase the number of minority students in the chemistry department to about 15%. Dr. Jackson was known for bringing students and researchers to his lab who might have been overlooked by others. He helped them become important scientists.

Awards and Honors

Dr. Jackson has received many awards and honors, including:

• 1986 NOBCChE Percy L. Julian Award
• 1989 Guggenheim Fellow
• 1991 Catholic University of America Alumni Award
• 1995 Elected Fellow of the American Physical Society
• 1996 Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Research Award
• 1997 American Association for the Advancement of Science Lifetime Mentor Award
• 2002, 2003 Sigma Xi Distinguished Lecturer
• 2004 Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
• 2010 Elected Fellow of the American Chemical Society
• 2011 Morehouse College Bennie Trailblazer Award
• 2015 University of California, Davis Emeritus Award
• 2019 Astronomical Society of the Pacific Arthur B.C. Walker II Award
• 2021 American Physical Society Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize