Research Trainee
The Research Assistant is a low-ranking job, relatively equivalent to a Staff Assistant. In theory, they're meant to assist the Scientists by being a workhand around the Research Sector. However, due to their relative lack of access (only access to Science itself, nothing inside of it), they typically end up being a Staff Assistant with built-in Science access. Though, the one upside over regular Scientists is that the Research Assistant has access to the Maintenance Tunnels, which regular Scientists lack.
Crew Objectives
Strangely enough, the Research Assistant is the only job to not get any crew objectives, unlike all other assistants.
History and Removal
Research Assistants appeared very early in Space Station 13's history, stretching back to when the game's original creator, Exadv1 was still developing for the game, dating it before the existence of Devstation. They and the other department-specific assistant jobs were merged into one single "Assistant" job on July 4th 2008, and unlike Technical Assistant and Medical Assistant, they never quite got reintroduced.
Reintroduction
On September 24th, 2021, the job was re-added as a latejoin role, along with the Medical Assistant, Technical Assistant, and Head Surgeon.
Supplementary Video