His professional interests comprise all aspects of digital photogrammetry & remote sensing, image understanding and their connection to GIS and computer vision. His two areas of special expertise are automatic sensor orientation and object extraction from images. Christian Heipke has successfully supervised about 35 PhD theses and has about 400 scientific publications to his name, some 90 of which appeared in peer reviewed international journals. He has acted as guest editor of major international journals in photogrammetry and remote sensing, and he is on the editorial board of various of these journals. He has organized and co-organized numerous international scientific meetings in the fields of photogrammetry, remote sensing, GIS and computer vision, in particular the biennial ISPRS Hannover Workshop on High Resolution Earth Imaging for Geospatial Information (since 1999). He has chaired Working Groups of the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS) for 16 years and was vicepresident of EuroSDR (European Spatial Data Research, formerly known as OEEPE) from 2004-2009, in which he was responsible for research. From 2011-2014 he was chair of the German Geodetic Commission (DGK), from 2012-2016 ISPRS Secretary General. Currently he serves as ISPRS President. He is the recipient of the Otto von Gruber Award 1992, the most prestigious award for young scientists in photogrammetry and remote sensing, the Frederick J. Doyle Award 2012 for outstanding and sustained qualities in the profession, both offered by ISPRS, and the Photogrammetric (Fairchild) Award 2013 from ASPRS. He is an ordinary member of the learnt societies German Geodetic Commission (DGK) at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities, the Braunschweig Scientific Society (BWG), acatech - the German Academy for Technical Sciences, the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA), and the European Academy of Sciences and Arts. Furthermore, he is a member of the German Society for Geodesy, Geoinformation and Land Management (DVW), the German Society for Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Geoinformation (DGPF), the German Society for Pattern Recognition (DAGM), the UK Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry Society (RSPSoc), the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS), and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).