In 1981 she became Assistant Professor at UC Berkeley in the department of Anthropology before moving to the University of Florida in 1986 as Associate Professor. She became professor emerita of applied biological anthropology at the University of Maryland after teaching there for 20 years, which was recognised by a Distinguished Scholar Teacher Award in 1995. In 2009 Jackson held a professorship and director role in biological anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She became a professor of biology and director of the W. Montague Cobb Research Laboratory at Howard University in 2013. In 2017 she received the STEM Woman Researcher of the Year from Howard University. Jackson served as director of UNC's Institute of African American Research from 2009 to 2011. She serves now as the director/ curator of the W. Montague Cobb Research Lab. Her research on peoples of recent African-descent also led to appearances on the PBS program African American Lives and the BBC's Motherland. In 2020 Jackson was awarded the Charles R. Darwin Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Association of Physical Anthropologists. She is the first African American woman to receive this award.
Research
Jackson specialises in the study of human-plant coevolution and anthropological genetics. For example, genetic changes in human evolution due to cultural migrations. Another example is the influence of phytochemicals on human metabolic effects. At the Cobb Research Lab, Jackson conducts studies on African American biological history with access to the largest collection of African American skeletal and dental remains in the world.
In 2008, Jackson published a paper using the method of ethnogenetic layering for analysis of health disparities across microethic groups. The current use of racial models for analysis of variation in disease may fail to capture medically relevant information. EL relies on computational approaches by using GIS-facilitated maps to produce geographical regional profiles which are used to better understand disease risk. Some incorporated information includes, local historical demography, genetic diversity, cultural patterns, and specific chronic disease risks.
