Matthias Steinmetz's personal research interests focus on the formation and evolution of galaxies, in particular the Milky Way. He has been actively engaged in performing high resolution simulation of the galaxy formation process. He is the principle investigator of the RAdial Velocity Experiment RAVE, a large international collaboration that over the past 15 years has amassed more than half a Million spectra for stars in the Galaxy.
As president of the German Astronomical Society and Chairperson of the Council of German Observatories (2014-2017) Matthias Steinmetz coordinated the Position Document "Perspectives of Astrophysics in Germany 2017-2030".