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

“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

Maintaining incentives like 6% APY can be difficult and may even be unsustainable over time, Xiang Zheng, an assistant professor of finance at the University of Connecticut, recently told MarketWatch.

From MarketWatch • Apr. 16, 2026

Nicole Grajewski, an assistant professor at Sciences Po's Center for International Research, said a US blockade was "not a minor coercive signal" but could rather be considered an effective resumption of the war.

From Barron's • Apr. 13, 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