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

See Examples For:

assistant professor

An agreement between the US and China to regulate AI development is "next to impossible", says Chang Jun Yan, an assistant professor with the military studies programme at Singapore's S Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

From BBC ● Sep. 14, 2026

"Coronary artery calcium scans are becoming more widely available and less expensive," said study senior author Dr. Nilay Shah, assistant professor of medicine in the division of cardiology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 12, 2026

Taking an accusatory approach—like asking, why can’t you see that you’re being fooled—can make a victim shut down, said Marti DeLiema, a University of Minnesota assistant professor of social work who studies financial fraud.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 6, 2026

Data-center development “appears to have little measurable impact” on local housing prices, according to a February research paper by Alex Priest, an assistant professor of finance at the University of Rochester.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 4, 2026

He knew about Nigerians, he told her, he was an assistant professor at Yale, and although his interest was mostly in southern Africa, how could he not know about Nigerians when they were everywhere?

From "Americanah" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie