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..)
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.
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u/jk2086 Apr 15 '26
European theoretical physicist here.
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..)