assistant professor

American  

noun

1. a teacher in a college or university who ranks above an instructor and below an associate professor.

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assistant professor British  

noun

1. a university teacher lower in rank than an associate professor

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Other Word Forms

• assistant professorship noun

Etymology

Origin of assistant professor

An Americanism dating back to 1850–55

Example Sentences

“Different centers of power are trying to extract better concessions before any formal meeting,” said Saeid Golkar, an expert on Iran’s security forces and an assistant professor at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 25, 2026

“Miran was an ideological ally,” says Jacob Bastian, a senior economist at CEA during the Biden administration and an assistant professor of economics at Rutgers University.

From Barron's • Apr. 24, 2026

“If you copy-paste chunks of ChatGPT with minimal edits, then Pangram is fairly accurate,” Tuhin Chakrabarty, an assistant professor of computer science at SUNY, told me.

From Slate • Apr. 17, 2026

"This is a huge public health crisis in the making," said Covarrubias, who is also an assistant professor of microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics.

From Science Daily • Apr. 16, 2026

At its inception, the division had a roster of four faculty members, including John, who was appointed an assistant professor of medical physics and mostly paid out of the Physics Department budget.

From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik