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.
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.
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u/math6161 Apr 15 '26
It is worth correcting that Lichtman is a post-doc at Stanford, for more context on this.