Cummings specializes in South Asian art history, especially Hindu temple architecture and Indian miniature painting. 

Cummings teaches art history found in all regions of Asia — from the Neolithic through contemporary periods. She regularly offers courses in South Asian, Chinese and Japanese art, with special topics courses on the Himalayan Islamic and Modern Asian art and architecture.

Her book, “Decoding A Hindu Temple: Royalty and Religion in the Iconographic Program of the Virupaksha Temple, Pattadakal,” was published in 2014 by the South Asian Studies Association. She has also published on Buddhist paintings of Tibet and Nepal, early modern painting in India, and Hindu architecture associated with death and cremation.

She has curated exhibitions for the Peabody-Essex Museum in Massachusetts, the Birmingham Museum of Art and for UAB’s Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts galleries.