nikos bikakis | home page

_about

I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electronic Engineering at the Hellenic Mediterranean University and a Research Associate at the Information Management Systems Institute of the ATHENA Research Center, Greece. Before that, I was a research engineer in industry, a postdoctoral researcher at the Athens University of Economics & Business, the University of Ioannina, and the ATHENA Research Center.

I received my PhD in Computer Science in 2016 from the National Technical University of Athens, under the supervision of Prof. Timos Sellis. In 2009 I received my Diploma in Electronic & Computer Engineering from the Technical University of Crete.

> Interests :: _Human-Data Interaction _Data Structures _Personalization Systems _Explainable AI & Fairness _Spatial & Social Data _Hard Computational Problems _Web of Data

_news

New Preprint :: Human-Data Interaction, Exploration, and Visualization in the AI Era: Challenges and Opportunities, Jean-Daniel Fekete, Yifan Hu, Dominik Moritz, Arnab Nandi, Senjuti Basu Roy, Eugene Wu, Nikos Bikakis, George Papastefanatos, Panos K. Chrysanthis, Guoliang Li, Lingyun Yu [page] [infographic: /.pdf /.png]
EDBT 2026 Paper :: Data-Driven Trajectory Imputation for Vessel Mobility Analysis [page] [GitHub]
MDM 2026 Paper :: Context-Enriched Natural Language Descriptions of Vessel Trajectories [page] [GitHub 1] [GitHub 2]
MuseKDE 2026 Paper :: Trajectory Imputation Using Computer Vision Models [page] [GitHub]
New Preprint :: Explaining Group Recommendations via Counterfactuals
Services 2026 [highlights] :: WWW 2026, ACM SIGMOD 2026, VLDB 2026, IEEE ICDE 2026, EDBT 2026/27, DASFAA 2026 [Senior PC]
New Project :: M3: Multimodal Foundation Models for the Maritime Domain [GitHub]
New Preprint :: Adaptive Indexing for Approximate Query Processing in Exploratory Data Analysis
ACM SIGMOD Blog Post [Jan. 2025]:: Data Exploration and Visual Analytics Challenges in AI Era, Sihem Amer-Yahia, Leilani Battle, Yifan Hu, Dominik Moritz, Aditya Parameswaran, Nikos Bikakis, Panos K. Chrysanthis, Guoliang Li, George Papastefanatos, Lingyun Yu.
ACM SIGMOD Record article 2025 :: Visual Analytics Challenges and Trends in the Age of AI: The BigVis Community Perspective, Nikos Bikakis, Panos K. Chrysanthis, Guoliang Li, George Papastefanatos, Lingyun Yu. [page]
Happy to serve WWW 2025, VLDB 2025 and EDBT 2025 as a PC member, and DASFAA 2025 as a Senior PC member!
DOLAP 2025 Paper :: Counterfactual Explanations for Group Recommendations
2025 Services [highlights]
Senior PC Member :: DASFAA 2025
PC Member :: WWW 2025, VLDB 2025, EDBT 2025, etc.
Guest Editor :: Data Exploration & Visual Analytics in AI Era, Big Data Research, Elsevier
Organizer :: BigVis @ VLDB 2024
ACM SIGMOD Record article 2024 :: Visualizing, Exploring & Analyzing Big Data: A 6-Year Story, N. Bikakis, G. Papastefanatos, P.K. Chrysanthis, O. Papemmanuil, D. Auber, S. Frey, I. Fujishiro, H. Hauptmann, S. Liu, K-L. Ma, T. Schreck, M. Sedlmair, M. Sharaf.
Organizer :: 7th International Workshop on Big Data Visual Exploration & Analytics (BigVis 2024) @ VLDB 2024, Guangzhou, China, alongside Panos Chrysanthis, Guoliang Li, George Papastefanatos and Lingyun Yu.
VLDB Journal Paper 2024 :: Resource-Aware Adaptive Indexing for In-situ Visual Exploration and Analytics [poster] [code] [home]
Encyclopedia Article Invitation :: Big Data Visualization Tools, @ Encyclopedia of Big Data Technologies, 2nd ed, Springer, 2024

_book

Linked Data Visualization: Techniques, Tools and Big Data

Laura Po, Nikos Bikakis, Federico Desimoni & George Papastefanatos

Springer, 2020

ISBN: 9781681737256 (softcover) || 9781681737270 / 978-3-031-79491-9 (hardcover)

ISBN: 9781681737263 / 978-3-031-79490-2 (ebook) || 9781681738345 (epub)

DOI: 10.2200/S00967ED1V01Y201911WBE019 / 10.1007/978-3-031-79490-2

>_ Among the top-5 most downloaded book (in 2020) in the Data, Semantics, and Knowledge series (Morgan & Claypool Publishers, 2021).

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_service

Organizer/Editor/Chair. IEEE Computer Graphics & Applications 2021 [Guest Editor], BigVis 2024-2018 [Organizer/General Chair], Big Data Research 2025, 2020 & 2018, Elsevier [Guest Editor], Frontiers in Big Data [Associate Editor], MDM 2021 & 2026 [Publicity Chair], EDBT 2021 [Session Chair], Journal of Web Semantics, Elsevier [Guest Editorial Board], Open Journal of databases [Associate Editor], DASFAA 2014 [Session Chair]
Program Committee Member [partial list]. WWW [2022-2025], SIGMOD [2023-2025], VLDB [2025, 2026], ICDE [2026], EDBT/ICDT [2021-2026], DASFAA [2021-2026] [Senior PC], CIKM [2019-2023]
Reviewer [partial list]. VLDB Journal, IEEE TKDE, ACM TKDD, IEEE TVCG, ACM TWEB, Bioinformatics, Information Systems, Semantic Web Journal, World Wide Web Journal, etc.

_publications

Fekete J.-D., Freire J., Hu Y., Moritz D., Nandi A., Roy S. B., Wu E., Bikakis N., Papastefanatos G., Chrysanthis P. K., Li G., Yu L.: Human-Data Interaction, Exploration, and Visualization in the AI Era: Challenges and Opportunities, 2026 [ page] [infographic: /.pdf /.png] [under review] new
Spiliopoulos G., Troupiotis-Kapeliaris A., Patroumpas K., Liapis N., Skoutas D., Zissis D., Bikakis N.: Data-Driven Trajectory Imputation for Vessel Mobility Analysis, 29th intl. conf. on extending database technology (EDBT '26) [page] [GitHub] new
Patroumpas K., Troupiotis-Kapeliaris A., Spiliopoulos G., Betchavas P., Skoutas D., Zissis D., Bikakis N.: Context-Enriched Natural Language Descriptions of Vessel Trajectories, 29th ΙΕΕΕ intl. conf. on mobile data management (ΙΕΕΕ MDM '26) [page] [GitHub 1] [GitHub 2] new
Betchavas P, Troupiotis-Kapeliaris A., Patroumpas K., Spiliopoulos G., Skoutas D., Zissis D., Bikakis N.: Trajectory Imputation Using Computer Vision Models, Intl. Workshop on Multi-Sensor Trajectory Knowledge Discovery & Extraction (MuseKDE 2026) [page] [GitHub] new
Stratigi M., Bikakis N., Stefanidis K.: Explaining Group Recommendations via Counterfactuals, 2026 [under review] new
Betchavas P., Troupiotis-Kapeliaris A., Patroumpas K., Spiliopoulos G., Skoutas D., Zissis D., Bikakis N.: Multimodal Maritime Foundation Models: Challenges and Opportunities, 2026 [under review] new
Maroulis S., Bikakis N., Stamatopoulos V., Papastefanatos G.: Adaptive Indexing for Approximate Query Processing in Exploratory Data Analysis, 2025 [under review] new
Bikakis N., Chrysanthis P., Li G., Papastefanatos G., Yu L.: Visual Analytics Challenges and Trends in the Age of AI: The BigVis Community Perspective, SIGMOD Record 2025 [page] new
Bikakis N., Papastefanatos G., Chrysanthis P.K., Papemmanuil O., Auber D., Frey S., Fujishiro I., Hauptmann H., Liu S., Ma K-L., Schreck T., Sedlmair M., Sharaf M.: Visualizing, Exploring & Analyzing Big Data: A 6-Year Story, SIGMOD Record 2024
Stratigi M., Bikakis N., Stefanidis K.: Counterfactual Explanations for Group Recommendations, 27th intl. workshop on design, optimization, languages & analytical processing of big data (DOLAP '25)
Maroulis S., Bikakis N., Stamatopoulos V., Papastefanatos G.: Partial Adaptive Indexing for Approximate Query Answering, intl. workshop on big data visual exploration & analytics (BigVis '24)
Maroulis S., Bikakis N., Papastefanatos G., Vassiliadis P., Vassiliou Y.: Resource-Aware Adaptive Indexing for In-situ Visual Exploration and Analytics, VLDB Journal 2023 [poster] [code] [home]
Bikakis N., Giannopoulos G., Sidiropoulos N., Flouda C., Doupas A., Giouli V., Karioris P., Botini P., Vacalopoulou A., Stainhaouer G.: Exposing Geospatial Cultural Heritage Content in Map-based Applications, intl. workshop on big data visual exploration & analytics (BigVis '23)
Giouli V., Vacalopoulou A., Sidiropoulos N., Flouda C., Doupas A., Giannopoulos G., Bikakis N.,Kaffes V., Stainhaouer G.: Placing multi-modal, and multi-lingual Data in the Humanities Domain on the Map: the Mythotopia Geo-tagged Corpus, 13th intl. conf. on language resources & evaluation (LREC 22)
Papastefanatos G., Alexiou G., Bikakis N., Maroulis S., Stamatopoulos V.: VisualFacts: A Platform for In-Situ Visual Exploration and Real-time Entity Resolution, intl. workshop on big data visual exploration & analytics (BigVis '22)
Maroulis S., Bikakis N., Papastefanatos G., Vassiliadis P., Vassiliou Y.: RawVis: A System for Efficient In-situ Visual Analytics, intl. conf. on Management of Data (ACM SIGMOD/PODS '21) [poster] [code] [video] [home]
Bikakis N., Maroulis S., Papastefanatos G., Vassiliadis P.: In-Situ Visual Exploration over Big Raw Data, information systems, Elsevier, 2021 [poster] [code] [home]
Bikakis N.: Big Data Visualization Tools, Encyclopedia of big data technologies, 2nd ed, Springer 2022 [springer]
Maroulis S., Bikakis N., Papastefanatos G., Vassiliadis P., Vasiliou Y.: Adaptive Indexing for In-situ Visual Exploration and Analytics, 23rd intl. workshop on design, optimization, languages and analytical processing of big data (DOLAP '21)
Andrienko G., Andrienko N., Drucker S., Fekete J.-D., Fisher D., Idreos S., Kraska T., Li G., Ma K.-L., Mackinlay J.D., Oulasvirta A., Schreck A., Schmann H., Stonebraker M., Auber D., Bikakis N., Chrysanthis P.K., Papastefanatos G., Sharaf M.: Big Data Visualization and Analytics: Future Research Challenges and Emerging Applications 3rd intl. workshop on big data visual exploration & analytics (BigVis '20) > SIGMOD Blog Posts [Part 1] [Part 2]
Po L., Bikakis N., Desimoni F., Papastefanatos G.: Linked Data Visualization: Techniques, Tools and Big Data, Springer / Morgan & Claypool 2020 [home] [sample] [BibTeX] [Among the top-5 most downloaded book (in 2020) in the Data, Semantics, and Knowledge series, Morgan & Claypool Publishers, 2021]
Desimoni F., Bikakis N., Po L., Papastefanatos G.: A Comparative Study of State-of-The-Art Linked Data Visualization Tools, visualization and interaction for ontologies and linked data intl. workshop (VOILA '20)
Bikakis N., Kalogeraki V., Gunopulos D.: Attendance Maximization for Successful Social Event Planning, 22nd intl. conf. on extending database technology (EDBT '19)
Bikakis N.: Big Data Visualization Tools, encyclopedia of big data technologies, Springer 2019
Bikakis N., Kalogeraki V., Gunopulos D.: Social Event Scheduling, 34th IEEE intl. conf. on data engineering (ICDE '18) [preview]
Bikakis N., Maroulis S., Papastefanatos G., Vassiliadis P.: RawVis: Visual Exploration over Raw Data, 22nd european conf. on advances in databases & information systems (ADBIS 2018) [Best Paper Award]
Bikakis N., Liagouris J., Krommyda M., Papastefanatos G., Sellis T.: graphVizdb: A Scalable Platform for Interactive Large Graph Visualization, 32nd IEEE intl. conf. on data engineering (ICDE '16) [preview]
Bikakis N., Sellis T.: Exploration and Visualization in the Web of Big Linked Data: A Survey of the State of the Art, 6th intl. workshop on linked web data management (LWDM '16)
Bikakis N., Papastefanatos G., Skourla M., Sellis T.: A Hierarchical Aggregation Framework for Efficient Multilevel Visual Exploration and Analysis, semantic web journal (SWJ), 2016
Bikakis N., Benouaret K., Sacharidis D.: Finding Desirable Objects under Group Categorical Preferences, knowledge & information systems journal (KAIS), 2015
Bikakis N., Liagouris J., Krommyda M., Papastefanatos G., Sellis T.: Towards Scalable Visual Exploration of Very Large RDF Graphs, 12th extended semantic web conference (ESWC '15) [Best Poster/Short Paper Award]
Bouros P., Sacharidis D., Bikakis N.: Regionally Influential Users in Location-Aware Social Networks, 22nd ACM intl. conf. on advances in geographic information systems (ACM GIS SIGSPATIAL '14) [preview]
Bikakis N., Tsinaraki C., Stavrakantonakis I., Christodoulakis S.: Supporting SPARQL Update Queries in RDF-XML Integration, 13th intl. semantic web conference (ISWC '14) [preview]
Bikakis N., Sacharidis D., Sellis T.: A Study on External Memory Scan-based Skyline Algorithms, 25th intl. conf. on database & expert systems applications (DEXA '14)
Bikakis N., Skourla M., Papastefanatos G.: rdf:SynopsViz - A Framework for Hierarchical Linked Data Visual Exploration and Analysis, 11th extended semantic web conference (ESWC '14)
Bikakis N., Benouaret K., Sacharidis D.: Reconciling Multiple Categorical Preferences with Double Pareto-based Aggregation, 19th intl. conf. on database systems for advanced applications (DASFAA '14) [technical report]
Bikakis N., Tsinaraki C., Stavrakantonakis I., Gioldasis N., Christodoulakis S.: The SPARQL2XQuery Interoperability Framework, world wide web journal (WWWJ), 2013 [technical report]
Bikakis N., Giannopoulos G., Liagouris J., Skoutas D., Dalamagas T., Sellis T.: RDivF: Diversifying Keyword Search on RDF Graphs, 17th intl. conf. on theory & practice of digital libraries (TPDL '13) [preview]
Bikakis N., Tsinaraki C., Gioldasis N., Stavrakantonakis I., Christodoulakis S.: The XML and Semantic Web Worlds: Technologies, Interoperability and Integration. A survey of the State of the Art, semantic hyper/multi-media adaptation: schemes & applications, Springer 2013
Dalamagas T., Bikakis N., Papastefanatos G., Stavrakas Y., Hatzigeorgiou A.: Publishing Life Science Data as Linked Open Data: the Case Study of miRBase, 1st intl. workshop on open data (WOD '12)
Makris K., Bikakis N., Gioldasis N., Christodoulakis S.: SPARQL-RW: Transparent Query Access over Mapped RDF Data Sources, 15th intl. conf. on extending database technology (EDBT '12) [preview]
Stavrakantonakis I., Tsinaraki C., Bikakis N., Gioldasis N., Christodoulakis S.: SPARQL2XQuery 2.0: Supporting Semantic-based Queries over XML Data, 5th intl. workshop on semantic media adaptation & personalization (SMAP '10)
Makris K., Gioldasis N., Bikakis N., Christodoulakis S.: Ontology Mapping and SPARQL Rewriting for Querying Federated RDF Data Sources, 9th intl. conf. on ontologies, databases, & applications of semantics (ODBASE '10) [technical report]
Bikakis N., Giannopoulos G., Dalamagas T., Sellis T.: Integrating Keywords and Semantics on Document Annotation and Search, 9th intl. conf. on ontologies, databases, & applications of semantics (ODBASE '10)
Giannopoulos G., Bikakis N., Dalamagas T., Sellis T.: GoNTogle: A Tool for Semantic Annotation and Search, 7th extended semantic web conference (ESWC '10)
Bikakis N., Gioldasis N., Tsinaraki C., Christodoulakis S.: Querying XML Data with SPARQL, 20th intl. conf. on database & expert systems applications (DEXA '09)
Bikakis N., Gioldasis N., Tsinaraki C., Christodoulakis S.: Semantic Based Access over XML Data, 2nd intl. summit on knowledge society (WSKS '09)
Makris K., Bikakis N., Gioldasis N., Tsinaraki C., Christodoulakis S.: Towards a Mediator based on OWL and SPARQL, 2nd intl. summit on the knowledge society (WSKS '09)

_projects

M3: Multimodal Foundation Models for the Maritime Domain [2025] [GitHub]
VisualFacts :: Democratizing Visual Analytics [Research Project for the support of Post-doctoral Researchers]
RawVis :: Progressive & Adaptive Processing for In-situ Visualization & Analytics over Big Raw Data [Nat/Eu Young Researchers Research Grant]
Social Event Organization :: Successful Social Events Planning
graphVizdb :: A Platform for Interactive Big Graph Data Visualization |: >_ try
synopsViz :: A Hierarchical Aggregation Framework for Progressive Multi-level Visualization & Analytics over Big Data
RDivF :: Keyword Search Diversification over RDF Data
SPARQL2XQuery :: Bridging the gap between the XML & the Semantic Web
SPARQL-RW :: Querying the Web of Data through Ontology Mapping & SPARQL Query Rewriting [Online Demo]
miRNA LOD :: Publishing & Exploring Evolving Biological Linked Data
GoNTogle :: Semantic-based Retrieval & Annotation

_misc

SIGMOD Blog Post :: Data Exploration and Visual Analytics Challenges in AI Era, January 2025 [pdf]
SIGMOD Blog Posts :: Big Data Visualization & Analytics: Future Research Challenges & Emerging Applications, March & June 2020 >_ Post Part 1 (March 2020) [url] [pdf] | Post Part 2 (June 2020) [url] [pdf] | Report
Bikakis N., Chrysanthis P., Papastefanatos G., Schreck T.: Machine Learning Approaches in Big Data Visualization , IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, 2022 [special issue]
Auber D., Bikakis N., Chrysanthis P.K., Papastefanatos G., Sharaf M. Interactive big data visualization and analytics, Big Data Research Journal, Elsevier, 2024 [special issue]
Bikakis N., Papastefanatos G., Papaemmanouil O.: Big Data Exploration, Visualization and Analytics, Big Data Research Journal, Elsevier, 2019 [special issue]
Intl. Workshop on Big Data Visual Exploration & Analytics >_ BigVis 2024 | BigVis 2023 | BigVis 2022 | BigVis 2021 | BigVis 2020 | BigVis 2019 | BigVis 2018
Bikakis N.: Personalized, Semantic and Exploratory Data Analysis. PhD Thesis, NTUA 2016
Linked Data Visualization Tools Timeline [pdf] [svg] [png]
XML and Semantic Web W3C Standards Timeline (v.1.3) [pdf] [svg] [png]
SPARQL2XQuery Teaser :: Dont Mind The Gap! | ISWC 2014 Minute Madness
graphVizdb tool alt domains >_ graphVizdb | graphVizdb
Big data visualization tools
Social event planning