Helmert's interest in Statistics resulted from his research in geodesy (the study of distances and angles between widely separated locations on the Earth's surface). He became Professor of Geodesy at U Aachen in 1872, and at U Berlin in 1887, where he became director of the Prussian Geodetic Institute. His research included fundamental work on the chi-squared distribution.

http://www.sammlungen.hu-berlin.de/dokumente/14104/ Photograph.