Adaptive Camouflage to Unmapped Terrain

Final In-Class Presentation

For Georgetown’s Team Crypsis, Hacking for Defense wasn’t just a class. It was a collision course in humility, urgency, and finding clarity in chaos.

They came from vastly different walks of life. Tessa Haugh, raised in a blue-collar Philadelphia neighborhood shaped by gang violence. Sam Koralnik, whose national security instincts were sharpened by the Boston Marathon bombing and time spent in Israel during the 2014 Gaza War. Rohith Stambamkadi, an investment lawyer from southern India, who pivoted into strategic security after witnessing the economic and social aftermath of the 2019 Easter bombings in Sri Lanka.

Together, they formed Team Crypsis, named for the concept of adaptive camouflage in nature. A fitting metaphor for their work: a rapid-turn, high-stakes sprint to help modern warfighters adapt faster in increasingly unmapped terrain.

What Was at Stake

The problem they tackled wasn’t academic. It was visceral. U.S. warfighters on the ground needed smarter camouflage tactics and adaptive SOPs (standard operating procedures) to detect and counter emerging drone threats, particularly in contested environments like Eastern Europe.

Team Crypsis knew from the beginning that the solution wasn’t just tech. It was trust. Process. Human factors. Interoperability. Their mission: help operators see and stay hidden in a battlespace where the enemy’s eyes are everywhere.

Building Something That Could Work in the Field

Some teams stay local, but Team Crypsis went global. With support from the Common

Mission’s Innovation Fund, they traveled to Amsterdam for a 48-hour European defense tech hackathon inside a drone warehouse. They were the only American student team there, and likely the only one with policy and business backgrounds, not engineering pedigrees. But they walked away with a breakthrough.

"It was the first time we truly saw where the pull was," Sam recalls. “There were teams with full drone systems who never demoed. We came in with nothing and left with something real.”

Back stateside, teammate [Atsushi Sumikawa] visited Quantico and the Naval Academy, pressure-testing their prototype and refining the SOP through direct end-user feedback. By the time team member Sam Koralnik hit San Francisco for a final hackathon, their MVP was no longer hypothetical, it was evolving.

Operators of Another Kind

What made Crypsis click wasn’t a single star player. It was alignment, honesty, and a shared belief that the mission mattered more than titles.

• Sam brought strategic vision and critical infrastructure experience from FEMA and CISA. He also served as the team’s connective tissue, translating feedback and chasing field validation.

• Tessa handled the pulse—driving insights from end-user interviews, building narrative clarity, and bringing quantum cyber readiness experience from Deloitte into a very physical theater.

• Rohith tracked doctrine and macro-threat patterns, drawing from his nonprofit work translating India’s military strategy for civilian audiences—and from his growing interest in cross-border defense innovation partnerships.

A Playbook for the Field, and for the Future

Crypsis didn’t walk away with a patent. They walked away with something more powerful: confidence, conviction, and clarity of purpose.

Their SOP was tested. Their MVP is in development. Sam is actively building software. Rohith is headed into a defense-tech accelerator. Tessa is helping Deloitte launch its drone and AAM (Advanced Air Mobility) vertical. The project may evolve, but none of them are walking away from the problem space.

Most importantly, they learned how to move at the speed of relevance.

What It Meant

Team Crypsis didn’t just help warfighters think differently about camouflage. They showed what happens when students aren’t underestimated.

They proved that people with policy degrees, law backgrounds, and no engineering credentials can still shape defense outcomes if they just show up, ask the right questions, and get proximate to the mission.

As Tessa put it: “This is why you go to grad school. Not for papers. For problems. And people. And purpose.”

Advice to Future Students

“Go where the pull is,” says Sam. “You’ll get out what you put in. This is the most impactful class I’ve taken, and that impact isn’t theoretical. It’s happening. Now.”