Jackson was a Fellow of the American Physical Society (elected in 1961), a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Member of the National Academy of Sciences (elected in 1990). In 1956, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 1989, he received an Honorary D. Sc. from his alma mater, the University of Western Ontario. In 2009, in recognition of his own contributions to classroom teaching and his textbook, the American Association of Physics Teachers created the "J. D. Jackson Award for Excellence in Graduate Education", with the first award in February 2010 to Eugene D. Commins.