About

I'm a computer science junior at George Mason University. I'm grateful to have been mentored by Dr. Zifu Wang and mentored by Dr. Chaowei Yang. I'm part of the NSF Spatiotemporal Innovation Center and earned an A.S. in Computer Science from Northern Virginia Community College.

I research language models on domain-specific tasks, digital twins, and the intersection. Past related projects include location extraction by LLMs, LLM conflict text classification, automated mapping digital twin, benchmarking small and reasoning language models for system log severity classification, and data center digital twins for infrastructure monitoring and "what-if" scenarios.

GitHub / Google Scholar / LinkedIn / ORCID

News and Updates

  • September 2025: Worked with an ASSIP fellow this summer, mentored and guided to publish this abstract.
  • July 2025: Published my first author paper in MDPI Algorithms on comparative analysis of BERT and GPT for classifying crisis news with Sudan conflict as an example.
  • July 2025: Published paper in IJDE on optimizing context-based location extraction using LLMs with RAG.
  • May 2025: Graduated from NOVA with my A.S. in Computer Science.
  • December 2024: Co-authored poster presented at AGU Fall Meeting 2024.
  • November 2024: Presented updated findings on context-aware location extraction at the STC IAB at GMU.
  • July 2024: Presented findings on conflict incident classification using a BERT model at the 2024 International Symposium of Spatiotemporal Data Science.
  • May 2024: Presented findings on context-aware location extraction at the STC IAB at Harvard.

Research

Benchmarking Small and Reasoning Language Models on System Log Severity Classification

Yahya Masri, Emily Ma, Joseph Rogers, Zifu Wang, Chaowei Yang

Currently Drafting, 2025

/
BibTeX
@article{masri2025benchmarking,
  title={Benchmarking Small and Reasoning Language Models on System Log Severity Classification},
  author={Masri, Yahya and Ma, Emily and Rogers, Joseph and Wang, Zifu and Yang, Chaowei},
  year={2025}
}

Automating Map-Making through Enhanced Geographic Information Extraction Using Retrieval-Augmented Generation with Open-source Large Language Models

Yahya Masri, Zifu Wang, Chaowei Yang

Currently Drafting, 2025

/
BibTeX
@article{masri2025automating,
  title={Automating Map-Making through Enhanced Geographic Information Extraction Using Retrieval-Augmented Generation with Open-source Large Language Models},
  author={Masri, Yahya and Wang, Zifu and Yang, Chaowei},
  year={2025}
}

Optimizing context-based location extraction by tuning open-source LLMs with RAG

Zifu Wang, Yahya Masri, Anusha Srirenganathan Malarvizhi, Tayven Stover, Samir Ahmed, David Wong, Yongyao Jiang, Yun Li, Mathieu Bere, Daniel Rothbart, Dieter Pfoser, David Marshall, Chaowei Yang

IJDE International Journal of Digital Earth, 2025

PDF/
BibTeX
@article{wang2025optimizing,
  title={Optimizing context-based location extraction by tuning open-source LLMs with RAG},
  author={Wang, Zifu and Masri, Yahya and Malarvizhi, Anusha Srirenganathan and Stover, Tayven and Ahmed, Samir and Wong, David and Jiang, Yongyao and Li, Yun and Bere, Mathieu and Rothbart, Daniel and Pfoser, Dieter and Marshall, David and Yang, Chaowei},
  journal={International Journal of Digital Earth},
  year={2025},
  doi={10.1080/17538947.2025.2521786}
}

Comparative Analysis of BERT and GPT for Classifying Crisis News with Sudan Conflict as an Example

Yahya Masri, Zifu Wang, Anusha Srirenganathan Malarvizhi, Samir Ahmed, Tayven Stover, David W. S. Wong, Yongyao Jiang, Yun Li, Qian Liu, Mathieu Bere, Daniel Rothbart, Dieter Pfoser, Chaowei Yang

Algorithms, 2025

PDF/
BibTeX
@article{masri2025comparative,
  title={Comparative Analysis of BERT and GPT for Classifying Crisis News with Sudan Conflict as an Example},
  author={Masri, Yahya and Wang, Zifu and Malarvizhi, Anusha Srirenganathan and Ahmed, Samir and Stover, Tayven and Wong, David W. S. and Jiang, Yongyao and Li, Yun and Liu, Qian and Bere, Mathieu and Rothbart, Daniel and Pfoser, Dieter and Yang, Chaowei},
  journal={Algorithms},
  year={2025}
}

Teaching & Mentoring

I am passionate about teaching and mentoring:

  • ASSIP Fellow mentoring (Summer 2025)

Experience

Fairfax, VA

Undergraduate Research Assistant, NSF Spatiotemporal Innovation Center

2024 – Present

Professional Service

☕ Miscellaneous

Projects: SoccerBot (LLM-powered soccer prediction and analysis app with RAG), BlueTemp (AI platform for predicting sea water temperatures), Crushor (retro platform game)