associate professor

American  

noun

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

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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

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Other Word Forms

• associate professorship noun

Etymology

Origin of associate professor

First recorded in 1815–25

Example Sentences

This level of specialisation in manufacturing was unseen elsewhere in the world at the time, says University of Bath associate professor Fei Qin, who studied factories across eastern China in the 2000s.

From BBC • Apr. 26, 2026

Susan Enguidanos, an associate professor of gerontology at USC, researches and teaches end-of-life care.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 25, 2026

“Wars are fought in two spaces,” said Narges Bajoghli, associate professor of Middle East Studies at Johns Hopkins University, in a recent Quincy Institute briefing.

From Barron's • Apr. 23, 2026

He co-led the study with Vinod K. Sangwan, a research associate professor at McCormick.

From Science Daily • Apr. 18, 2026

Graduate Dean George Birkhoff assured Ernest of Harvard’s high esteem for Oppenheimer “as a creative theorist” and confided that the university was willing to appoint him as an associate professor at $6,000.

From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik