Seymour Geisser (October 5, 1929 – March 11, 2004) was an American

statistician A statistician is a person who works with theoretical or applied statistics. The profession exists in both the private and public sectors. It is common to combine statistical knowledge with expertise in other subjects, and statisticians may wor ...

noted for emphasizing

predictive inference Statistical inference is the process of using data analysis to infer properties of an underlying distribution of probability.Upton, G., Cook, I. (2008) ''Oxford Dictionary of Statistics'', OUP. . Inferential statistical analysis infers properti ...

. In his book ''Predictive Inference: An Introduction'', he held that conventional statistical inference about unobservable population parameters amounts to inference about things that do not exist, following the work of

Bruno de Finetti Bruno de Finetti (13 June 1906 – 20 July 1985) was an Italian probabilist statistician and actuary, noted for the "operational subjective" conception of probability. The classic exposition of his distinctive theory is the 1937 "La prévision: ...

. He also pioneered the theory of cross-validation. With Samuel Greenhouse, he developed the

Greenhouse–Geisser correction The Greenhouse–Geisser correction \widehat is a statistical method of adjusting for lack of sphericity in a repeated measures ANOVA. The correction functions as both an estimate of epsilon (sphericity) and a correction for lack of sphericity. Th ...

, which is now widely used in the

analysis of variance Analysis of variance (ANOVA) is a collection of statistical models and their associated estimation procedures (such as the "variation" among and between groups) used to analyze the differences among means. ANOVA was developed by the statistician ...

to correct for violations of the assumption of compound symmetry. He testified as an expert on interpretation of DNA evidence in more than 100 civil and criminal trials. He held that prosecutors often relied on flawed statistical models. On that topic, he wrote "Statistics, Litigation and Conduct Unbecoming" in the book ''Statistical Science in the Courtroom'', edited by Joe oseph LouisGastwirth (Springer Verlag, 2000).

Biography

He was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. He earned his

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

at the

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States ...

in 1955 under Harold Hotelling. In 1971, he founded the School of Statistics at the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...

, of which he was the Director for more than 30 years.

Books

* * ''Modes of Parametric Statistical Inference'', Wiley, 2006 Geisser was also the principal editor of several books of papers by multiple authors.

Obituaries

* *

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Geisser, Seymour 1929 births 2004 deaths Scientists from New York City University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill alumni American statisticians Fellows of the American Statistical Association Mathematicians from New York (state)