He received his Ph.D. from The University of Michigan in 2003 and has held appointments at the American Museum of Natural History, Southern Methodist University, Washington University in St. Louis, and Dartmouth College. Covey has conducted archaeological surveys and excavations in the Andes since 1996, with particular focus on the Cuzco region of highland Peru, where he directed a series of regional settlement pattern surveys near the Inca capital. Each of these archaeological studies has included complementary archival research in Cuzco, Lima, London, and Seville. Working with the material and documentary record, Covey has published widely on the origins and expansion of the Inca Empire, as well as the Spanish colonial transformation of the Inca heartland.