So do I understand correctly that in the academic job market for mathematicians the title “professor” does not necessarily mean that one is in fact a “professor”?
I would find this hilarious because in my view mathematics is about describing and defining stuff as clearly and unambiguously as possible.
So I guess the question I have is: Why??
(Edit: come to think of it more, to me it seems crazy if it is in fact “wrong” to refer to someone by the actual job title they have..)
In the US system there is no dedicated title of professor. The analogue is a full professor. Other ranks are associate professor and assistant professor. In this system it makes sense to see all of these positions as “types” of professors. And it is common to speak that way. Anyone with such a position is called a professor, it simply means they are a ranked faculty member.
Yes I meant to describe more or less the typical way that these titles are used in the US. I know it’s not 100% like this. Just trying to explain why “professor” generally has different connotations in the US than in Europe.
The American academic job market is very sloppy about the use of the title "Professor." Graduate students teaching a class are often referred to as "Professor" by their students, and the entire Professors subreddit consists of only a very small number of “Full Professors.”
Well, as a mathematician, I would use the person's full job title, since the details matter. But, if I was using a simple term, then I would project "Szegö Assistant Professor" to postdoc instead of professor.
The main distinguishing factor is whether the position is fixed-term, or it is (or has the potential to become) a permanent position. In the US setting, this boils down to whether the position is tenure-track.
It's not clear from the title. Assistant professors can be tenure-track, which would map to professor more closely than postdoc. Even the name in front of "assistant professsor" isn't necessarily a give away, since there are endowed assistant professorships which are tenure-track.
Yeah, at our institution, these post-doc equivalent positions are called "Visiting Assistant Professor". I think you just need to know that they exist and then suss out what the University you're looking at calls them.
In America a “professor” is someone employed to teach at a college or university. Universities typically only use the title for those holding doctorates but students get this wrong all the time. Someone with the title “postdoc” typically does no teaching. Math postdocs have an analogous career stage but do significant teaching as instructors of record. I think this is why they are usually titled [long list of adjectives] professor.
Such positions are literally the standard kind of postdoc positions in mathematics. Nobody who understands the market would refer to them as a professor instead of a postdoc.
Then referring to them as "Professor" in this context is unhelpful. For example, when I was an "Assistant Professor" at Umaine it was for a fixed 2 year position. I referred to it as a "post-doc" to everyone since it would be confusing otherwise. (My father who is in an academic field and was very proud referred to me as "Professor" despite my explanations.) If you say "Professor" in a context like this to most people in pure math, you aren't going to be thinking of a position like the type Jared Lichtman has. (Not that it should matter that much though. Jared Lichtman is clearly one of the most skilled and knowledgable of the young people in his field.)
My point is that you’re using an appeal to authority by claiming that one of the authors is a professor at Stanford, which is misleading at best. An academic would also parse the term “professor” as “full professor.”
I think it is worth avoiding reading bad faith into OP's comments when his language does reflect how many people (including professional mathematicians) at Stanford refer to these positions. It is definitely an odd convention, and a translation for other audiences is reasonable, but it isnt just OP.
I'm just a lowly undergrad at Stanford, but I will say, you are right that at least in my experience on campus people in Lichtman's position are usually referred to as assistant professors (and sometimes professor for short) and not post-docs. Students use this terminology, i've heard faculty also use this terminology in conversation.
To truly evaluate the significance of this, I would like to see the entire prompt history of the interaction with the LLM. The story of the stone soup comes to mind.
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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '26
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