Casey's dissertation project investigates how small-scale infrastructure usually outlasts those state-sponsored projects in the archaeological record. As a case study, his project integrates geochronology, computer vision, and ethnography to study the mechanisms through which irrigation aqueducts (kariz) in Turpan, Xinjiang, have continually operated for 700–900 years. His extensive fieldwork suggests that local management and the annual maintenance it performs—what Casey calls "tinkering"—has facilitated rapid adaptation to the shifting landscape and cultivated an enduring (and somewhat loving) human-technological relationship. At IRiSS, Casey will focus on a dissertation chapter where he uses deep learning techniques and declassified intelligence imagery (from KH-9 HEXAGON missions) to trace the frequent transformations of these aqueducts from 1971 till today.
