MIAMI, FL.- Thomas “Thom” Collins, an arts administrator, art historian, educator and author with more than 15 years of experience serving as a director and curator at several of America’s top museums, has been named as the new director of Miami Art Museum (MAM). Collins will join MAM after serving for five years as director of the Neuberger Museum of Art in Westchester County , New York . Collins’ appointment comes just as MAM begins to transition into a new Herzog & de Meuron-designed building located in downtown Miami ’s Museum Park . Groundbreaking on the project is scheduled to take place in late 2010, with the museum’s opening set for 2013. The search for MAM’s new director was spearheaded by a search committee chaired by MAM trustee Rose Ellen Greene. Collins will begin his tenure as director on August 16, 2010. He succeeds John Wetenhall, who has served as interim director of MAM