About Authors

Laura Po is an Associate Professor in the "Enzo Ferrari" Engineering Department at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy. She obtained a Ph.D. in Computer Engineering and Science from the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, in 2009. She has given several tutorials at ISWC conference in 2018 and at the second and third edition of the Keystone Training School in 2016 and 2017 on linked data tools, emphasizing practical ways to put linked data to use. She is a lecturer of Semantic Web (since 2011) and Database courses (since 2009) at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. She authored about 40 publications in journals and proceedings of national and international conferences. Her research interests focus on data integration, metadata extraction, Semantic Web, NLP, Linked Data, open government data, and the smart city. She is leading a European Research Project on Open Data for Smart Cities called TRAFAIR "Understanding traffic flows to improve air quality" (www.trafair.eu). She co-founded the DataRiver S.r.l. in 2009; DataRiver designs and develops solutions for data integration using techniques from research in the field of the Semantic Web.
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Nikos Bikakis is a postdoctoral researcher at ATHENA Research Center, Greece. Before that, he was a post-doctoral researcher at Univeristy of Ioannina, and at Athens University of Economics & Business, as well as a visiting lecturer at University of West Attica, Greece. He received his PhD in Computer Science from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) and his Diploma in Computer Engineering from the Technical University of Crete, Greece.
Nikos has published more than 25 international research papers (book & encyclopedia chapters, journal articles, and conference papers). He has been awarded an honorary scholarship from the NTUA for his PhD studies, and two Best Papers awards at international conferences. In 2018, his research in the field of Big Data visual analytics, was supported by a national/international research grand. He is co-organizing the annual international workshop on "Big Data Visual Exploration & Analytics" (BigVis 2020, 2019, 2018). Additionally, he has served as a Guest Editor of the special issues "Interactive Big Data Visualization & Analytics" and "Big Data Visualization, Exploration & Analytics" of the Big Data Research Journal, Elsevier 2020 & 2018.
His research interests include: Interactive Data management & Visualization, Data structures & Algorithms, Hard computational problems, Personalized data management, Heterogeneous databases, and Web of Data.
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Federico Desimoni Federico Desimoni got a Master degree in Computer Engineering at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia in 2019 with a thesis entitled "Empirical Evaluation of Linked Data Visualiation Tool". He is currently a research fellow in the "Enzo Ferrari" Engineering Department at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy. His research interests focus on Linked Data, Semantic Web and Big Data Analysis.



George Papastefanatos is a researcher at the Information Management Systems Institute of the ATHENA Research Center, since 2009. George obtained his Diploma on Electrical and Computer Engineering and his PhD in Computer Science from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens in 2000 and 2009, respectively. George has been involved as a senior researcher or scientific coordinator in the implementation of more than 15 EU and national research projects. He has also worked as an external IT expert in various private and public organizations such as National Statistical Service of Greece, ETVA VI.PE. S.A., Citibank, Greek Ministry of Education in the implementation of IT projects. During 2007 and 2011, he was an adjunct lecturer in University of Peloponnese and National School of Public Administration and in 2018 he was a visiting lecturer in University of Aegean. George has more 60 publications in international conferences and journals and has co-authored 3 chapters in books in the areas of big data management and analytics and specifically in issues related to semantic web data modelling, indexing and query optimization, data integration, data visualization and visual analytics. Three of his articles has been selected as Best Papers in International conferences. He has supervised and contributed to the development of more than 5 prototype tools related to the management and visualization of Linked Data. In 2018, George was one of the receivers of a grant from the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation for postdoctoral research on the area of data visualization and visual analytics. He is co-organizing the International Workshop on Big Data Visual Exploration and Analytics, an annual event providing a forum for researchers and practitioners to discuss exchange and disseminate their work in the research areas of Data Management & Mining, Information Visualization and Human-Computer Interaction. George has given several invited talks in conferences and events, and served as a keynote speaker in the 8th International Workshop on "Data Engineering meets the Semantic Web" (DESWeb2017), in conjunction with ICDE 2017, giving a talk for "Visual Exploration in the Web of Data".
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