In 1971 Geisser became the founding Director of the School of Statistics here at the University of Minnesota. He remained in that position until 2001 and was primarily responsible for developing its graduate program and for hiring outstanding faculty members who have become leaders in their areas of expertise. Moreover, many of the students obtaining their Ph.D. degrees from the School of Statistics have also become leaders in their areas. Geisser was primarily responsible for creating an educational environment that valued the foundations of the field beyond mere technical expertise.

He received his bachelor's degree in Mathematics from the City College of New York in 1950, and his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Mathematical Statistics at the University of North Carolina in 1952 and 1955, respectively. He was the founding Chair of the Department of Statistics at SUNY, Buffalo in 1965 and remained there until moving to Minnesota. He authored or co-authored 176 scientific articles, discussions, book reviews and books over his career.

A major focus of his research was on the area of prediction in statistics. The essence of his argument was that the field of statistics should focus on observable quantities rather than on unobservable parameters that don't really exist except in mathematical models. He believed that the success of a statistical model should be measured by the quality of the predictions it makes. He pointed out that interest in model parameters often seemed to be based more on the interests of the statistician and the ease of mathematical display than in the scientific utility of the model. Much of his work in this area is summarized in his monograph Predictive Inference: An Introduction, which was published by Prentice-Hall in 1993.

Geisser was involved as an expert witness in more than 100 litigations involving murder, rape and paternity. He was a skeptic about some aspects of forensic DNA profiling, arguing that such analyses were often based on flawed statistical models. His experiences in these cases are described in his paper "Statistics, litigation and conduct unbecoming," in the book "Statistical Science in the Courtroom" edited by Joe Gastwirth (Springer Verlag 2000).

Two special conferences were convened to honor the contributions of Geisser to the field of statistics. The first was held at the National Chiao Tung University of Taiwan in December of 1995, and the second was held at the University of Minnesota in May of 2002. In addition, a special volume entitled Modeling and Prediction: Honoring Seymour Geisser, was published in 1996.

At the time of his death Geisser was just finishing a book entitled Modes of Parametric Statistical Inference. It provides a broad view of the foundations of the field of statistics and invites discussion of the relative merits of different modes of statistical method and thought. His life's work exemplifies the presentation of thoughtful, principled, reasoned, and coherent statistical methods for use in the search of truth. This book epitomizes that work.

Beyond statistics, Geisser had wide intellectual interests that included philosophy, history and Latin. He also loved cultivating roses, traveling and visiting wild life refuges. He is survived by his wife Anne, four children and five grandchildren.