From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishassociate professorasˌsociate proˈfessor noun [countable] SECa professor at an American university whose job is above the level of assistant professor and below the level of professor
Examples from the Corpus
associate professor• Mr Tolleson returned to his alma mater in 1971 as an associate professor to teach band arranging and music theory.• J., is an associate professor of modern and classical languages at the University of San Francisco.• I participated in a national competition called to fill eight positions of associate professor in gastroenterology. 