Born in Baltimore, Maryland, he was the only son of Jacob Hackerman and Anna Raffel, immigrants from the Baltic regions of the Russian Empire that later became Estonia and Latvia, respectively.
Hackerman earned his bachelors degree in 1932 and his doctors degree in chemistry in 1935 from Johns Hopkins University. He taught at Johns Hopkins, Loyola College in Baltimore and the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia, before working on the Manhattan Project in World War II.
He joined the University of Texas in 1945 as an assistant professor of chemistry, became an associate professor in 1946, a full professor in 1950, a department chair in 1952, dean of research in 1960, vice president and provost in 1961, and vice chancellor for academic affairs for the University of Texas System in 1963. Hackerman left the University of Texas in 1970 for Rice, where he retired 15 years later. He was named professor emeritus of chemistry at the University of Texas in 1985 and taught classes until the end of his life.
He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Among his many honors are the Olin Palladium Award of the Electrochemical Society, the Gold Medal of the American Institute of Chemists (1978), the Charles Lathrop Parsons Award, the Vannevar Bush Award and the National Medal of Science. He was awarded the Acheson Award by the Electrochemical Society in 1984.
Hackerman served on advisory committees and boards of several technical societies and government agencies, including the National Science Board, the Texas Governors Task Force on Higher Education and the Scientific Advisory Board of the Welch Foundation. He also served as editor of the Journal of the Electrochemical Society' and as president of the Electrochemical Society.