A Florida college professor is teaching students his own age after he was named the youngest professor in the world.
Guinness World Records announced in a July 23 news release that Nathan Thomas is now officially the youngest male professor ever after he accepted a job teaching engineering at Miami Dade College.
Thomas, who is now 21, broke the record at the age of 18 years and 346 days old.
He took the title from Colin Maclaurin, who was 19 when he became a professor in Scotland in 1717. Maclaurin, who died in 1746, held the record for 306 years.
Thomas is 16 days younger than the world’s youngest female professor, Alia Sabur, who became a professor in 2008 at 18 years and 362 days old.
Thomas began teaching the college course COP 2270: C for Engineers in August 2023, according to the news release. He told GWR: “Once you’re in that setting, everyone’s there for the same reason, which is to learn. Age doesn’t really factor into that.”
He added: “I just focus on trying to do my job well and helping students in whatever way I can. If someone’s willing to put in the effort, that’s really all that matters to me.”
Thomas was previously dual-enrolled at Miami Dade College when he was just 10 years old. He transferred to Florida International University when he was 14.
By the time he was 18, Thomas had graduated with his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering, both with honors.
He told GWR he grew up interested in STEM because both of his parents were engineers, and math just “clicked” for him.
“Now, the part about teaching that I like most is watching something click for a student,” he explained. “You can kind of see it happen in real time, when a concept that felt impossible a few minutes ago suddenly makes sense. It’s a different kind of satisfaction than solving a problem yourself, almost like getting to relive that feeling through someone else.”
He added: “Teaching something forces you to understand it on a whole other level – so I end up learning just as much from it as the students do, if not more.”
Thomas is currently teaching college classes online as he works on his law degree at the University of Miami School of Law, which he plans to graduate from in 2028. His goal is to work in intellectual property law with a focus in STEM.