OPopenalex
Authors

Get a single author

Retrieve a single author by OpenAlex ID or ORCID.

get/authors/{id}

Request

  • Base URL
    https://api.openalex.org
  • URL
    https://api.openalex.org/authors/{id}
  • Auth
    API key in query parameter api_key

Path parameters

idstring required

OpenAlex ID (e.g., A5023888391) or ORCID

Query parameters

selectstring

Comma-separated list of fields to return. Reduces response size. Example: select=id,display_name,cited_by_count

api_keystring required

Your OpenAlex API key (required). Get a free key at https://openalex.org/settings/api

Response

Successful response

idstring

The OpenAlex ID for this author.

orcidstring nullable

The ORCID ID for this author. This is the Canonical External ID for authors.

display_namestring

The name of the author as a single string.

display_name_alternativesstring[]

Other ways this author's name has been displayed.

longest_namestring

The longest name variant found for this author across all their works.

works_countinteger

The number of works this author has created.

cited_by_countinteger

The total number of works that cite a work this author has created.

works_api_urlstring

A URL that will get you a list of all this author's works.

created_datestring date

When this author was added to OpenAlex (ISO 8601 date).

updated_datestring date-time

When this author was last updated (ISO 8601 datetime).

Example response

{
  "id": "https://openalex.org/A5023888391"
}

Changes

No recorded changes to this operation across all 6 revisions of this API.