MIAMI.- Miami Art Museum Director Terence Riley has named Heather Steliga as the museum’s Associate Director for Communications. Reporting to Richard P. Townsend, the museum’s Deputy Director of External Affairs and MAM’s Board of Trustees, Steliga will be responsible for all of MAM’s public communications efforts, including marketing, advertising and press relations.

“MAM is delighted to add Ms. Steliga to its staff. She has an extensive background in communications and the marketing of growing fine arts and nonprofit institutions, including the opening of Bartholomew Voorsanger’s renovated headquarters building for the Asia Society in New York City,” said Museum Director Terry Riley. “Her experience will be a tremendous asset as MAM prepares to move into its new 120,000 square foot home in downtown Miami’s Museum Park.”

“I am thrilled to have been selected to head the communications department at the Miami Art Museum, especially at this exciting stage in the museum’s history. Miami itself is becoming an increasingly vibrant, international center for contemporary art, and the Miami Art Museum is playing a leading role in creating that vibrancy,” Steliga said. “The new building will be one of the greatest civic art projects of the early 21st century. It’s really exciting for me to be a part of this project, especially while it’s still developing. Working with Terry Riley, Richard Townsend and everyone else on the museum’s great staff, I am going to try to make a significant impact and turn all eyes onto the Miami Art Museum in the coming years.”

Before joining MAM, Steliga was the President of foggydaycommunications, which provides marketing and communications services to nonprofit organizations in New York City and New England. Prior to establishing foggydaycommunications, she served as Director of Communications for the School of Visual Arts, New York, New York; Director of Public Relations for the Asia Society and Museum, New York, New York; and Program Manager Bratone Associates, New York, New York. Her professional experience also includes positions as Director of Communications for the Portland School of Art, Portland, Maine; as Head Writer for the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; as an instructor at Hebei Teachers College, Shijiazhuang, China; and as Assistant to the Director of The Bell Gallery, Brown University, Providence, RI.

Ms. Steliga holds an MA in English from Brown University and a BA in English from the University of New Hampshire. She also conducted graduate studies in East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard.

Her first book, Water Runs to What is Wet, received a Pushcart Prize nomination and was awarded First Prize by the Academy of American Poets.