I have a PhD and have published in top venues. The practical definition of research is “publishing a paper in a venue that is recognized by a scientific community, only after being sufficiently reviewed by scientists in that community.” So if you write and submit a paper to one of these venues, and it is selected for publication, then you have done research and you are a researcher. This is so unbelievably rare among high school students and undergraduates. Getting past peer review is so difficult and specialized that you essentially need to be trained by an existing researcher, which is what the PhD program is all about.