Authors

The Authors endpoint represents individual researchers and scholars. Each author links to their institutional affiliations, publication counts, citation metrics, and works.

Quick Start

Get an author by OpenAlex ID

from aletheca import AlethecaSession

async with AlethecaSession() as session:
    author = await session.authors.get("A5023888391")
    print(author.display_name)
    print(author.orcid)
    print(author.works_count)
    print(author.cited_by_count)

Get an author by ORCID

from aletheca import AlethecaSession

async with AlethecaSession() as session:
    author = await session.authors.get("https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1825-0097")
    print(author.display_name)
    print(author.id)

The get method accepts OpenAlex IDs (A1234567890), full URLs, or ORCID identifiers (with or without the https://orcid.org/ prefix).

Search for authors

from aletheca import AlethecaSession

async with AlethecaSession() as session:
    results = await session.authors.search(
        search="Andrea Gawrylewski",
        page_size=25,
    )
    for author in results.results:
        print(f"{author.display_name} — {author.works_count} works")

Filtering

Use AuthorsFilters to construct structured filter queries:

from aletheca import AlethecaSession
from aletheca.endpoints import AuthorsFilters

async with AlethecaSession() as session:
    filters = AuthorsFilters(
        display_name_search="gawrylewski",
        has_orcid=True,
    )
    results = await session.authors.search(filters=filters, page_size=25)

Filter by institution

Filter authors by their institutional affiliations — either current or historical:

from aletheca import AlethecaSession
from aletheca.endpoints import AuthorsFilters

async with AlethecaSession() as session:
    # Authors affiliated with a specific institution
    filters = AuthorsFilters(
        affiliation_institution_id="I31371856",  # Stanford University
    )
    results = await session.authors.search(filters=filters, page_size=50)

    # Authors at institutions in a specific country
    filters = AuthorsFilters(
        affiliations_institution_country_code="US",
    )

    # Authors at a specific type of institution
    filters = AuthorsFilters(
        affiliations_institution_type="education",
    )

    # Filter by institution lineage (includes parent/child orgs)
    filters = AuthorsFilters(
        affiliations_institution_lineage="I31371856",
    )

    # Filter by ROR ID
    filters = AuthorsFilters(
        affiliations_institution_ror="https://ror.org/00f54p054",
    )

Filter by last known institution

The last_known_institutions fields filter on the author's most recent institutional affiliation:

from aletheca import AlethecaSession
from aletheca.endpoints import AuthorsFilters

async with AlethecaSession() as session:
    filters = AuthorsFilters(
        last_known_institutions_id="I31371856",
        last_known_institutions_country_code="US",
    )
    results = await session.authors.search(filters=filters, page_size=25)

Filter by ORCID presence

from aletheca import AlethecaSession
from aletheca.endpoints import AuthorsFilters

async with AlethecaSession() as session:
    filters = AuthorsFilters(has_orcid=True)
    results = await session.authors.search(filters=filters, page_size=25)

Filter by summary statistics

from aletheca import AlethecaSession
from aletheca.endpoints import AuthorsFilters

async with AlethecaSession() as session:
    filters = AuthorsFilters(
        summary_stats_h_index=50,
    )
    results = await session.authors.search(filters=filters, page_size=25)

Affiliations

Each author has an affiliations list containing their institutional history with year ranges:

from aletheca import AlethecaSession

async with AlethecaSession() as session:
    author = await session.authors.get("A5023888391")

    for aff in author.affiliations:
        institution = aff.institution if hasattr(aff, "institution") else None
        years = aff.years if hasattr(aff, "years") else None
        if institution:
            name = institution.get("display_name") if isinstance(institution, dict) else institution.display_name
            print(f"  {name} ({years})")

    # Current/most recent institutions
    for inst in author.last_known_institutions:
        print(inst.display_name)

Iteration

from aletheca import AlethecaSession
from aletheca.endpoints import AuthorsFilters

async with AlethecaSession() as session:
    filters = AuthorsFilters(
        affiliations_institution_country_code="DE",
    )
    async for author in session.authors.iterate(
        filters=filters,
        per_page=200,
        sort="works_count:desc",
    ):
        print(f"{author.display_name}: {author.works_count} works")

Key Fields

Field	Type	Description
display_name	str \| None	Author display name
orcid	str \| None	ORCID identifier
works_count	int \| None	Total number of works
cited_by_count	int \| None	Total citations received
affiliations	list[DehydratedInstitutionWithYear]	Institutional affiliations with years
last_known_institutions	list[DehydratedInstitution]	Most recent institutions
counts_by_year	list[YearCount]	Annual works/citations breakdown
summary_stats	SummaryStats \| None	h-index, i10-index, 2yr mean citedness
topics	list[TopicCount]	Topics associated with the author's works
ids	AuthorIds \| None	OpenAlex, ORCID, and other IDs

Notes

• OpenAlex IDs for authors start with A (e.g. A5023888391).
• Author names are not unique; use ORCID or OpenAlex ID for precise identification.
• The affiliations field provides historical institutional data with year ranges.
• last_known_institutions is a convenience shortcut for the most recent affiliation.
• The x_concepts field is deprecated; use topics and topic_share instead.