2012 Alexia Vanides Online Teaching Award Recipient

Matthew Cummings is the director of strategic communications at Erie Insurance (Nasdaq: ERIE), a Fortune 500 auto, home, business, and life insurer. In this role, he leads the company’s media relations and internal communications teams.

Prior to joining Erie Insurance, Cummings served as assistant director of online programs for the former WVU Reed College of Media and was a lead instructor in the Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) graduate program, where he taught and managed IMC 410, the program’s introductory course. He has taught at WVU since 2006 and received the program’s Alexia Vanides IMC Teaching Award in 2012.

Cummings’ award-winning marketing communications career spans more than 25 years across corporate, nonprofit, and education settings. He has served as a communications director for public school systems, as a vice president at a regional advertising agency, and spent five years in commercial radio as an on-air announcer and producer.

A native of northwest Pennsylvania, Cummings is a graduate of the West Virginia University IMC program. He also holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communications from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania and completed graduate-level studies in strategic communications at Seton Hall University and in education administration at the University of Nebraska.

In 2025, he was named PR Person of the Year by the Northwest Pennsylvania Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA).

LinkedIn:  Matthew Cummings