Cameron Jackson

Surrounded by her family, Cameron Jackson, “Ph.D Mom,” “Aptos Grandma,” left earth August 6, 2025 to join her family in heaven. Cameron was born in and lived her early life in Berkeley, California with her parents Marvin & Dorothy, twin brother Jeff and older brother Christopher. 

At the age of 10, she and her family, along with their Siamese cat Seven Toes, moved to the Philippines where her father had accepted a contract to assist the government with economic development and to promote U.S. interests during the Cold War. The family spent 4.5 years there. Her father took other positions with the USG or USAID taking the family around the world to Seoul, South Korea, Santiago, Chile and Panama. Cameron returned to the US for her undergraduate degree. Not fitting in with typical American culture at the time, she lived in the International House and earned her degree from UC Berkeley. She went on to work at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) and contributed to groundbreaking psychological studies, including Puthoff and Targ’s pioneering parapsychology program exploring phenomena such as remote viewing. Shortly after, her twin brother was tragically killed and she shifted her focus to  pursuing a Ph.D in Psychology at UC Santa Cruz, at a time when Santa Cruz was known as the murder capital of the world. She studied under Frank Barron, a renowned scholar of creativity and exceptional human potential. Her research also explored their opposites and darker aspects of psychology such as destructiveness, deviance and threat perception. 

In her fieldwork, Cameron undertook immersive and sometimes dangerous research, including hitchhiking alone at night to study firsthand the behavior of potentially violent individuals. Her findings influenced UCSC’s decision to close its open-campus policy, instituting the vehicle restrictions and security gates that remain in place today. 

As part of her research into deviance, and through mutual friends, the Kane’s, Cameron met her husband and love of her life Jim Jackson.  Cameron and Jim married and shared more than fifty years together until his death earlier this year.

They had two children, JJ and Mackey, as well as four grandchildren: Lachlan, Duncan, Ruby and Dylan. 

Cameron always prioritized, husband, family and the disadvantaged in our community. She founded and ran the Calvary Childcare Center, obtaining Packard Foundation grants, to provide immediate counseling, and free childcare for  children and families in crisis.  She was director of AWARE SC County Methadone Clinic, was on the board of directors at the Pajaro Valley Shelter for women and children,  worked with friend Dr. Robert Jensen to help establish medical and mental health services at Clinica Del Valle de Pajaro, helped found the Aptos Times, ran a modem accessed bulletin board called ANGST Net pioneering supportive community on the internet, could never use the VCR but in her 80s fully ran, her own a website, she performed psychological testing, particularly related to children and autism for decades helping families to receive accurate diagnoses and services.

Outside of her work she was always up for an adventure; backing Yosemite, riding horses, traveling to foreign lands, white water rafting, swimming with the seals, sailing, running a community garden, volunteering to feed homeless, fundraise, or serve as an assistant music teacher among many other community building projects. She loved poppies, art, cooking and engaging with people. She was never shy about her politics, her fierce love for her family, or the love of God which brought her so much strength. She would often say, “Whose hands are God’s hands? Yours are” believing that faith requires action and that each person has a role to play in carrying out God’s work on Earth.