He started his career as an engineer and took almost all the steps up on the academic career ladder starting from the post of an Assistant to the post of Professor of Physical Chemistry. He was a valued member of the teaching staff and supervised 13 successfully defended doctoral theses. For a total of 23 years, from 1991 to 2014, he worked a dean at the university, first in the Faculty of Chemistry and later in the Faculty of Chemical and Materials Technology. From 2019, Õpik was Senior Researcher and Professor Emeritus of the Department of Materials and Environmental Technology. In 2015, Andres Öpik became a member of the University Board of Tallinn University of Technology.

Andres Öpik’s fields of research were related to the research of the properties, production and applications of polymer materials. He has published more than 250 scientific papers and several university textbooks. In 1985, he was awarded the Estonian SSR National Research Award and in 2006 the Estonian National Research Award as a member of academician Enn Mellikov’s research group for studying new structures and materials used in solar photovoltaic cells. In 2013, Andres Öpik was elected Member of the Estonian Academy of Sciences in the field of engineering. His father, engineer in the field of power engineering Ilmar Öpik (1917–2001), was also Member of the Estonian Academy of Sciences and his great uncle, astronomer Ernst Öpik (1893–1985) was a member of the first composition of the Estonian Academy of Sciences founded in 1938.

Andres Öpik was born on 4 May 1947 in Tallinn. He graduated from Tallinn Secondary School of Science in 1965 and Tallinn University of Technology in 1970 and defended a PhD (cand. chem) at the University of Tartu in 1980. Andres Öpik has been awarded the Order of the White Star, 4th class (in 2006) and the “Mente et Manu” honorary medal of Tallinn University of Technology (in 2007).