Jackson's research focuses on the geodynamic, structural, and stratigraphic evolution of sedimentary basins. He has been described by the
Geological Society of London as the "leading and most productive interpreter of three-dimensional
seismic reflection data of his generation." After completing his PhD in 2002, he was an exploration research geologist in the
Norsk Hydro research center,
Bergen. In 2004, Jackson joined
Imperial College London as a lecturer in Basin Analysis in the Department of
Earth Science and Engineering, where he was appointed
Statoil Professor of Basin Analysis in 2015. Between 2015 and 2016 he was a Visiting Lecturer in Petroleum Science at the
University of Namibia. In a 2017 interview with the
Guardian newspaper, Jackson stated that he knew of "no other black, full-time, Earth science academic in the UK – or in fact, Europe or the US." Jackson is on the editorial board of the
Journal of Petroleum Geology. He is a Fellow of the
Geological Society of London. In 2020 he was appointed to the Chair in Sustainable Geoscience at the
University of Manchester, taking up the post in early 2021. In March 2022, Jackson announced on Twitter that he was leaving the University of Manchester to work for the scientific consulting firm
Jacobs Engineering Group. According to an interview with
Nature, Jackson "received what was, in his opinion, a racially insensitive e-mail that constituted harassment and alluded to using social media to police staff opinions, which, he says, was the last straw". He filed a formal complaint with the university. == Broadcasting ==