Research assistant, associate, fellow? I completed my PhD and post-PhD. Since last year I am working as a researcher in my country, at the lowest level of hierarchy (first out of five) It usually takes no less than 4 years of steady research to advance to the next level. These levels are named (translated to English)


Assistant researcher
Associate/Adjunct researcher
Independent researcher
Principal researcher
Superior/Top researcher


My employer is the government (Argentina), and I work at a government-funded institute.

Although I understand that this likely varies for different countries, what designation do you believe describes my position more accurately?
In the US, a "research assistant" is typically a graduate student, or occasionally an undergraduate. A "fellow" is somebody funded by a scholarship - it indicates you aren't being funded because of the merits of your research project but primarily because of your personal merits as a scholar. Sometimes "fellows" are also more senior positions (senior non-professor PhD roles in academic laboratories, or some PhD researchers outside academia) and there the title implies some additional autonomy beyond other employees.

Research Associate is the title typically given to post docs, but can be more broad than "post doc" which implies a training position. Including the information from your previous post I think it is the title that would be used in a US context that is most equivalent to the position you describe. Note that all of these designations apply mostly to academia: titles in industry can be completely different and vary a lot by field.

My suggestion if you were wanting your CV to be most understandable to someone in the US or familiar with the US system would be to write your title from your contract, untranslated, and in parentheses you could translate it as "Research Associate."