assistant professor

American  

noun

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

---

assistant professor British  

noun

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

---

Other Word Forms

• assistant professorship noun

Etymology

Origin of assistant professor

An Americanism dating back to 1850–55

Example Sentences

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

The lack of attention to screens tallies with research done by Ilyena Hirskyj-Douglas, an assistant professor at the University of Glasgow's School of Computing.

From BBC • Apr. 9, 2026

"The lighter a black hole is, the hotter it should be and the more particles it will emit," says Andrea Thamm, co-author of the new research and assistant professor of physics at UMass Amherst.

From Science Daily • Apr. 8, 2026

“The ice, the frozen material, basically it’s kind of…a glue,” said Ashim Sattar, an assistant professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bhubaneswar, who led research examining the South Lhonak Lake burst.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 1, 2026

Ashoke has been hired as an assistant professor of electrical engineering at the university.

From "The Namesake" by Jhumpa Lahiri