Alister Henry Cumming (born 1953) is a Canadian linguist. He is currently a professor emeritus at the University of Toronto. He is most noted for early studies of composing processes in a second language in the 1980s, establishing that writing skills transfer from first to second languages, adopting Goal Theory from educational psychology to the study of second language writing research, and for his contributions to language testing. Along with Ken Hyland, Judit Kormos, Rosa Manchón, Paul Kei Matsuda, Lourdes Ortega, Charlene Polio, Neomy Storch, and Marjolijn Verspoor, Cumming is considered to be one of the most prominent researchers on second language writing.