Leo Goodman was born in New York City in 1928; he graduated from Syracuse University in 1948 with an A.B. degree, summa cum laude, in mathematics and sociology; and he received M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Princeton University in 1950 in mathematics, with special emphasis in mathematical statistics. He was a faculty member at the University of Chicago from 1950 to 1986 in the Statistics Department and the Sociology Department, and he served there as the Charles L. Hutchinson Distinguished Service Professor from 1970 to 1986. Starting in 1986, he became a faculty member in the Sociology Department and the Statistics Department at the University of California at Berkeley, where he is the Class of 1938 Professor.

Goodman was also at Cambridge University in 1953-54 and 1959-60 as a Visiting Professor at Clare College and in the Statistical Laboratory, and at Columbia University in 1960-61 as a Visiting Professor in the Department of Sociology and the Department of Mathematical Statistics. He was also at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, in Stanford, California, in 1984-85. He has received a Special Creativity Award from the National Science Foundation, and he has also received awards and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Fulbright Commission, the Social Science Research Council, and the National Science Foundation. The University of Michigan conferred the honorary degree Doctor of Science on him, and another honorary degree was also conferred on him by Syracuse University.

Goodman is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. He is also the recipient of various other honors and awards from the American Statistical Association, the American Sociological Association, and the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, including the Samuel S. Wilks Memorial Medal presented by the American Statistical Association, and the Career of Distinguished Scholarship Award presented by the American Sociological Association. He has also received the Samuel A. Stouffer Award from the American Sociological Association, the R.A. Fisher Lectureship from the Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies, and the Henry L. Rietz Lectureship from the Institute of Mathematical Statistics.

The research work that Goodman has done has been concerned with a wide variety of statistical problems, and also with the development of a wide variety of statistical methods for the analysis of data that are of interest in the social and behavioral sciences. He has published approximately 150 articles and four books. His more recent research has been focused mainly on the further development of statistical methods that bring the same kind of rigor to the analysis of qualitative/categorical data that has been available in the analysis of quantitative data.

The honors and awards received by Goodman recognize his contributions to statistics, both theoretical and applied, and to the development of new statistical methods for the analysis of social science data, especially the kind of qualitative/categorical data typically obtained via survey research. The honorary degree Doctor of Science, which was recently conferred on him by the University of Michigan, was for "his major contributions to statistics and social and behavioral sciences, and in particular for his development of new methods for the analysis of survey data as a sophisticated branch of statistical science...He has had a profound impact on methods of statistical analysis used in the social and behavioral sciences. In particular, he has had a most important role in elevating the analysis of survey data from an art form to a rigorous branch of statistical science. His work has fundamentally transformed quantitative research methods in the social sciences, particularly in sociology, by providing a set of interrelated statistical tools that enable researchers to examine qualitative/categorical data with scientific rigor. His introduction and further development of these and related tools have led to revolutionary changes in the methods now used in social science research involving categorical data."