About — Gothic Grandma

The Core Team at Gothic Grandma.

We are researchers, engineers, and builders creating simulation as a new cultural and scientific medium.

Nathan Baune, PhD

Co-founder & CEO & Chief Architect — Architecture, GPU engineering, complex systems

Benny Chen, PhD

Co-founder & CDSO — Data science, simulation analytics

Yasmine Bassil

COO — Neuroscience, systems design consultation, partnerships & public communications

Co-founder & CEO & Chief Architect — Architecture, GPU engineering, complex systems

Nathan has been building MUSE from the ground up for over 7 years. A software engineer and computational systems neuroscientist with a scientific background in complex systems, he works from GPU kernels and databases all the way up to making sure a button's shade of green is just right. He holds a PhD in Rehabilitation Science (Washington University, 2020) and brings deep expertise in engine architecture and GPU engineering to every layer of the platform. His research and engineering work at WashU and Emory University, supported by the American Heart Association and American Parkinson Disease Association, centered on measuring and modeling perception, action, and learning in real-world contexts. Previously co-founded health-tech startup Proprio with Benny, securing federal funding (NIDILRR) to develop wearable sensor monitoring systems for post-stroke rehabilitation. At Gothic Grandma, Nathan is responsible for MUSE's simulation engine architecture and GPU engineering — the technical foundation everything else is built on.

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Lore:

A Portland, OR native, Nathan spends too much time cooking and squinting at his laptop with his black cat, Lupa. He's an avid worldbuilder — both as a Dungeon Master crafting worlds for tabletop RPG campaigns and as a writer fascinated by the intersection of storytelling and cognitive science. MUSE emerged when he tried to turn one of his fictional worlds into an interactive story — but refused to use scripted responses for characters. Modeling real cognition instead turned into a research rabbit hole that became FONT, then a company, and now here we are. He loves to garden (and is actually quite good at it, but somehow can't keep a succulent alive to save his life), snowboard, debate (lovingly), and goes all in when the best holiday of the year rolls around (halloween, obviously). He plays lead guitar in a band with Yasmine — heavy metal roots now bent toward alt-rock and jazz.

Co-founder & CDSO — Data science, simulation analytics

Benny is a full-stack data scientist with a PhD in Rehabilitation Science (Washington University, 2019) and 15+ years of experience spanning research and production environments. His data science background spans statistical analysis, machine learning deployment, data pipeline architecture, and wrangling complex data from diverse sources. A prior ML researcher at Shirley Ryan (Chicago, IL) and currently a Senior Data Scientist at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Benny brings rigorous scientific standards to every layer of MUSE's data infrastructure. Previously co-founded health-tech startup Proprio with Nathan, securing federal funding (NIDILRR) to develop wearable sensor monitoring systems for post-stroke rehabilitation. At Gothic Grandma, Benny owns the data observatory — designing the GG.Flow node library that connects simulation output to real-world analysis pipelines, architecting time series storage for large-scale simulation runs, orchestrating Monte Carlo ensembles, and building the statistical analysis and reporting systems that turn raw simulation data into insight. He closes the validation loop between what MUSE produces and what the science demands.

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Lore:

Benny is Taiwanese-American — he moved to the US at 18 to attend Berkeley. In Taiwan, he played Age of Empires II competitively! Nathan finds this both impressive and intimidating. He is also an amazing dancer! We are holding onto hope that someday he will bring his b-boy alter-ego out of retirement. Benny introduced Nathan to hotpot at friends-giving, for which Nathan is eternally grateful. Benny is the type of guy that shows up to his PhD lab as a shiny new student and come out the other side having built a whole machine learning research pipeline despite no-one else knowing anything about ML. He doesn't like to talk about it, but he is a classically trained pianist as well. We further hold hope that some day he will join the band.

COO — Neuroscience, systems design consultation, partnerships & public communications

Yasmine is a neuroscientist bridging research insight with operational leadership, inclusive design, and public communications. PhD Candidate (Emory University, expected Spring 2026) and NSF Graduate Research Fellow investigating cognitive changes across the lifespan. Yasmine has contributed to foundational work in multi-modal neuroimaging, is an award-winning teacher and mentor, and a nationally recognized leader in diversity, equity, and inclusion. At Gothic Grandma, she leads operational strategy, systems design consultation, and all partnerships and public communications — ensuring that everything we build and everything we say reflects genuine partnership with the communities we serve. Her extensive community engagement experience — including research with Atlanta's older adult community, leadership in the international Arabs in Neuroscience organization, creation of Atlanta's first Brainhack in 2019, founding Georgia Tech's International Student Task Force, and collaborations with multicultural student organizations across institutions — means our cultural authenticity comes from lived experience, not assumption. Our team's diverse backgrounds span multiple languages, cross-cultural navigation, chronic health conditions, neurodiversity, LGBTQ+ identities, refugee displacement, and immigration. These experiences shape every design decision — from cognitive accessibility to authentic representation.

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All three founders are as obsessed with karaoke as they are with brains.

Ethics & Governance

We're building something that matters. Which means we can get it wrong in ways that hurt people. When you simulate what it's like to be someone, you're shaping how people understand each other. How they build empathy, or fail to. Get it wrong, and you perpetuate harm at scale.

We're scientists who've studied brains and behavior for years. That doesn't make us experts in every culture, every disability, every lived experience we might simulate. We know what we don't know. So we've built accountability into the foundation.

Our Commitments

Gothic Grandma treats simulation of embodied minds as a responsibility, not just a capability. These commitments guide our development today and will govern how we operate at launch and beyond.

Creative Director Partnership

Every Living World representing a culture or community will be led by a Creative Director whose lived experience makes them the authentic voice — not consultants, but compensated partners who receive ongoing royalties. We provide the platform and resources; they provide the vision and cultural truth.

Community-Centered Review

Before release, we conduct interviews and product testing with diverse stakeholders: academics, policy experts, foundation leaders, community organizations, and everyday people with ties to the stories being told. Review happens at design and pre-release stages to catch issues early.

Auditable by Design

Our core simulation systems are deterministic mathematical models — not black-box machine learning. Every behavior can be traced through every computation. While our models are proprietary, our team maintains full internal auditability to investigate feedback and refine systems with precision.

AI as Translation, Not Generation

Our biological simulation is the source of truth. AI plays one role: translating structured simulation data into natural language. Characters don't hallucinate; they report actual simulated states. All AI processing happens locally on the user's device. No cloud APIs. No data collection. Complete privacy.

Data Privacy & Consent

We will never sell user data. EVER. Basic performance data helps us improve the platform. Behavioral data — your in-world decisions and choices — is strictly opt-in. All research data will be deidentified, and we are establishing external IRB oversight.

Research Ethics & Population Simulation

Population simulation will only be used for research that advances human understanding and well-being — never for manipulation or strategic advantage. All population-level studies require ethics review. GG.Flow ensures every research workflow is transparent, reproducible, and auditable.

Configurable Experience

We don't avoid difficult topics — we make them customizable. Through a guided setup process, users set their comfort levels for sensitive content before diving in. Age-appropriate defaults adjust automatically, with additional controls for parents and educators.

Feedback & Accountability

Users can report concerns directly in-app, through community forums, or via public channels. Feedback is tracked against system behavior, allowing us to identify issues and implement corrections. Our systems are designed to be challengeable and correctable — not static.

Research Standards

Gothic Grandma. Laboratories conducts research exclusively in pursuit of advancing human understanding, empathy, and well-being. We apply consistent ethical standards to all use of MUSE for research purposes. We do not and will not — for ourselves or any collaborators — partner with organizations whose research:

Advances military objectives or conflict capabilities
Enables surveillance or behavior manipulation
Treats simulated human cognition as an instrument of control
Prioritizes strategic advantage over human flourishing

We distinguish between research that advances harm and research that seeks to prevent or heal it. MUSE may be used to study trauma, improve therapeutic outcomes, support conflict resolution, or train caregivers — but never to develop strategic military capabilities, enhance interrogation techniques, or create tools of coercion.

Simulation technology capable of fostering deep understanding carries inherent dual-use risks. Our commitment is to ensure MUSE remains an instrument of connection, never coercion.

Partnership Review Process

All research partnerships undergo ethics review by our internal team, with input from external advisors as needed. Decisions are made transparently, with clear reasoning. If we decline a collaboration, we explain why and suggest alternative approaches when possible.

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