James Jackson To Captain RPI Golf Team

2015 Sep 3

James Jackson of Islesboro has been named the captain of the golf team for the 2015-16 season, according to head coach Miles Nolan. A senior, he won four tournaments and earned many honors and awards in 2014.

A fourth-year varsity performer for the Engineers, Jackson was a National All-America and a CoSIDA Capital One National Academic All-America - the first golfer in school history - after averaging 75.73 strokes over 19 rounds and capturing four events including three straight.

He competed in all 10 matches, earning medalist at the Duke Nelson Invitational (74-72) at Middlebury College, the Williams Fall Invitational (70-75) at Williams College and the Liberty League Fall Qualifier (season-best 72-70) hosted by the University of Rochester. Those three victories all came in consecutive weeks in September. Jackson, a graduate of Belfast Area High School, later won the Fred Kravetz Invitational (72-74), also hosted by Rochester, in the spring semester.

He was recognized by the Liberty League with four weekly Performer of the Week awards and an All-Academic certificate. He also captured ECAC Golfer of the Month once and was named to the GCAA Division III PING All-Northeast Region before landing on the GCAA National All-America Honorable Mention list.

In his first two seasons, Jackson played in 19 matches, earning a victory at the 2012 ECAC New England Division III Championship with overall score of 152 (76-76) and a runner-up finish at the Palamountain Invitational (76-71) in 2014. He also had five other top 10 finishes, earning the league's Rookie of the Week award once and All-Liberty League Second Team as a freshman.

A biomedical engineering major who carries a 3.95 cumulative grade point average, Jackson spent the summer interning on the medical devices team at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals. He has been conducting research in the Musculoskeletal Mechanics Laboratory at Rensselaer since September, 2014, having two abstracts accepted for poster sessions at the Northeast Bioengineering Conference and RPI Undergraduate Research Symposium. Last summer he conducted research in the Musculoskeletal Tissue Regeneration Laboratory at Rutgers University from which he had an abstract accepted for the poster session at the 2014 BMES Annual Meeting.

Jackson is one of seven members of the golf team including six returners from a group that won four tournaments and finished second in four other events. This year's roster is made up of two seniors, three juniors, a sophomore and a freshman. The season starts on Saturday at the two-day Transylvania University Intercollegiate in Lexington, Ky.