[1] Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Seeman was raised in Montreal.
He received a Bachelor of Science degree, honours physics & physiology (1955), a Master of Science degree, physiology of transport & secretion (1956), and a Doctor of Medicine (1960) from McGill University.
In 1966, he received a Ph.D. in life sciences from Rockefeller University under the supervision of George Emil Palade.
[2] In 1967, Seeman became an assistant professor in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Toronto.
[5] In 2001, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada "for his research on dopamine receptors and their involvement in diseases such as schizophrenia, Parkinson's and Huntington's".