Christian Heipke graduated from the Technical University Munich in 1986 and subsequently joined the Industrieanlagen-Betriebsgesellschaft (IABG), Ottobrunn as a Research Scientist. In October 1998 he was appointed Head of the Institute of Photogrammetry and GeoInformation, University of Hannover, where he currently leads a group of about 25 researchers, most of them funded through grants from national and international science organisations and from industry. His professional interests comprise all aspects of digital photogrammetry & remote sensing, image understanding and their connection to GIS. He was the recipient of the Otto von Gruber Award 1992, the most prestigious award for young scientists offered by the ISPRS. Currently he serves as chair of the ISPRS working group IV/3 “Automated geo-spatial data acquisition and mapping” and as vice-president of EuroSDR (European Spatial Data Research, formerly known as OEEPE), in which he is responsible for research.