Dick Jackson obtained his PhD in 1979 at the University of Waterloo, where he is now an Adjunct Professor. During the 1980s he established Environment Canada’s Ground-Water Contamination Project at the National Water Research Institute in Burlington, Ontario. He then joined INTERA in Austin, Texas in 1989 to modify enhanced oil recovery methods for groundwater cleanup. He returned to Canada in 2006 as a Principal with Geofirma Engineering Ltd. of Ottawa, to become task leader for geochemistry and petrophysics for the Deep Geological Repository at the Bruce Nuclear site.

He was awarded the 2008 Geoenvironmental Award of the Canadian Geotechnical Society and the 2013 Farvolden Award by the Canadian chapter of the International Association of Hydrogeologists. He is currently undertaking research into energy-well integrity and associated groundwater contamination. He lives near Waterloo, Ontario.