She attended the United States Naval Academy, graduating with a Bachelor of Surgery in mathematics in 1988. She received her master"s degree in Space Systems Engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School in 1994 and her Doctor of Philosophy in Systems Engineering from the University of Virginia in 2003.
She was one of the United States Navy"s first female fighter pilots. Cummings spent eleven years (1988–1999) as a naval officer and military pilot, earning the rank of lieutenant, and was one of the Navy"s first female fighter pilots, flying an F/A-18 Hornet. She became a fighter pilot shortly after the Combat Exclusion Policy was repealed in 1993, and her book, Hornet"s Nest, recounts her experience with discrimination and hostility as one of the first women in the fighter community.
Her first callsign was Medusa and her second was Shrew.
In an interview on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart she described her callsign as "Awesome - I am so Kate from The Taming of the Shrew". She was an instructor for the United States. Navy at Pennsylvania State University, an assistant professor at Virginia Technical in their Engineering Fundamentals Division, and an associate professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
She is currently an associate professor in the Duke University Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, the Duke Institute of Brain Sciences, and the Duke Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. She is also an affiliate professor with the University of Washington’s Aeronautics and Astronautics Department.
