Timothy O'Neill was educated at The Citadel, Charleston, gaining a bachelor's degree in political science; the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, studying MACT and experimental psychology; and after joining the army, the University of Virginia, where he gained his PhD in Experimental Psychology with a concentration in visual biophysics, writing his dissertation on "visual attraction of Blumian symmetry axes of visual forms".

In 1976, this work gained him a post as instructor at the West Point military academy, where he founded and was the first director of the program in engineering psychology.

For Hyperstealth Corp., he and the company's founder Guy Cramer designed the Razzacam pattern, said by David Rothenberg to be based on World War I dazzle camouflage "with pixelated and dithered patterns that are dizzying to look at, confounding our ability to parse their organizational structure".

Field testing showed that the result was good compared to the U. S. Army's existing camouflage patterns.

At a distance, the squares merged into a larger pattern, breaking up the vehicle's outline and making it blend into the background of trees.

Closer up, the pattern successfully imitated smaller details of the landscape, appearing as leaves, grass tufts, and shadows.

[2][7][8] O'Neill was quoted in a report by an American government watchdog, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, which was critical of wasteful Pentagon spending.