associate professor

American  

noun

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

---

associate professor British  

noun

1. (in the US and Canada) a university teacher lower in rank than a full professor but higher than an assistant professor

2. (in New Zealand) a senior lecturer holding the rank below professor

---

Other Word Forms

• associate professorship
  noun

Etymology

Origin of associate professor

First recorded in 1815–25

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

associate professor

The study was led by Roberto Vicinanza, an instructional associate professor of gerontology at the USC Leonard Davis School.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 18, 2026

It was 1955 and Marcus, a 31-year-old associate professor of chemistry still in the early stages of his career, had found an elementary mistake in the work of an esteemed scientist.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 17, 2026

“It’s hard to find things that are not made of plastic,” says Phoebe Stapleton, an associate professor in the department of pharmacology and toxicology at the Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy at Rutgers University.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 17, 2026

This strict reliance on limited, private labels is exactly what keeps Aldi's overheads low, according to Dustin York, an associate professor of communication at Maryville University.

From BBC ● Jul. 12, 2026

Panofsky, who had risen precociously in his two years at Berkeley to the rank of associate professor, detested the very idea of the oath, but signed— “reluctantly,” as he put it later.

From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik