What you say about "research assistant" is essentially correct, I believe. If the person whose biographical details you are dealing with is much more junior, and not apparently rising in the scientific community, it may be that he was (or indeeed still is) a laboratory assistant. This is a relatively lowly-paid technician's job, however, involving the preparation, maintenance and checking of laboratory equipment. Fairly good basic scientific qualifications are required, but a laboratory assistant would not normally be described as a scientist.
Having said all that, I suspect that your candidate isn't one of these! There may well be a German expression for "laboratory assistant", of which I am unaware.

So nennen wirŽs bei uns in der Behörde (ich bin selbst eine von diesen Spezies)

So nennen wirŽs bei uns in der Behörde (ich bin selbst eine dieser Spezies)

Thanks for the feedback. I don't think that "laboratory assistant" applies in this case (even those that may be what the job entailed!). "Scientific employee" also describes the job, but it's so generic! In describing an author's academic background, it seems "strange" to say that an author has been a scientific employee at the Institute for the History of Pharmaceutics at the University of Marburg since October 2000.

That's my problem with this term "wissentschaftlicher Mitarbeiter" -- it's so vague!

I was wondering if it would be possible to describe "WM" as an "assistant professor" ? Would this fit the case for some WMs?

Thanks again for the feedback -- and hoping for even more!

"Scientific employee" sounds a bit Denglisch to me.

"Assistant professor" looks to me like an Americanism, and I would take it to imply some teaching duties. What did this chap actually do?

Siehe Link und die Titel dort. Was stört dich an research associate, es wird doch benutzt ? Assistant Professor ist wahrscheinlich übertrieben, laboratory assistant sicher untertrieben.

Mir ist der Ausdruck "research associate" sehr geläufig. Ich denke das ist passend. Allerdings kenne ich diesen vor allem aus dem deutschen Raum, weshalb ich nicht die Hand dafür ins Feuer legen würde.
Der von Chris genannte Link funktioniert leider nur (noch?) nach einer Anmeldung mit Passwort...

There is no proper translation of WM as there is no direct counterpart to it in the academic systems of English-speaking countries. The only solution I can see is to find out what exactly this person did in his job and then to try and find a translation that gives a rough idea of what the job was about.
In my own CV, I typically translate it as "Lecturer and Research Assistant (Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbaiter)" - not because I consider this a correct translation (there is none), but because it describes what my job was about.
IMHO such an approach is justified because in the end, the title as such will not be relevant when they are assessing the CV.
(Note that it is important that you take into account the country that the CV is for. Otherwise you will run the risk of greatly over- or understating the person's position in the academic hierarchy.)

Also note that you will probably have to find different "translations" for the two periods of time mentioned (1990-1994, 1995-2000).

I agree with Londoner in that you have to go generic if there is no term in English. I am dealing with a German Art School and there are wissenschaftlich-künstlerische Mitarbeiter, wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiter, and künstlerische Mitarbeiter. These people are usually graduates and they can have the posts only for a limited time (Qualifikationsstelle). They have professional training but little experience and they usually get to do real professional tasks but they also have to carry laptops and wood and organize hotel rooms and whatever needs doing in a department.
That rules out "employee", doesn´t it?
Also, the publications I am translating for are not only for native English speakers: they are sent out to China, Russia and all other countries where the school has international contacts. So there is no point in looking for one special term from, say, the U.S. university system. It needs to be descriptive as far as I´m concerned.
After long discussion we have decided to list these people in the "members of academic staff" list and to title them "scientific member of staff".