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Semantic Scholar API: Get researcher impact metrics

Finds a Semantic Scholar author by name (optionally limited to a listed institution), picks the best-cited matching profile and returns their impact metrics and up to 10 most-cited papers.

semanticscholar.org (opens in a new tab)Version 1ReadNo sign-inVerified Nov 2, 2026

Unofficial. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Semantic Scholar.

Inputs

Values from the run on Oct 31, 2026, shown under Output.

Author, requiredauthor

Researcher name, for example Fei-Fei Li.

Fei Li

Institution optionalinstitution

Institution to match against listed affiliations, for example Southwest Petroleum University.

Southwest Petroleum University

Output

From a run on Oct 31, 2026, shortened for this page.
{  "name": "Fei Li",  "h_index": 16,  "homepage": "https://www.x-mol.com/groups/lifei_lab",  "author_id": "40573142",  "top_papers": [    {      "year": 2019,      "title": "Modern carbonate ooids preserve ambient aqueous REE signatures",      "venue": "Chemical Geology",      "citations": 101,      "paper_link": "https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/3cec4004626de001a5137ed9ee5fcd1f46bbee43"    },    {      "year": 2017,      "title": "Paleo-seawater REE compositions and microbial signatures preserved in laminae of Lower Triassic ooids",      "venue": null,      "citations": 70,      "paper_link": "https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a2daa86c301f7083fac2e6b93a047f45d8dd7e24"    },    {      "year": 2021,      "title": "Tracing seawater- and terrestrial-sourced REE signatures in detritally contaminated, diagenetically altered carbonate rocks",      "venue": "Chemical Geology",      "citations": 51,      "paper_link": "https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/3e94c352f0b49c52ef59caa6669ec513bf1e9431"    }  ],  "affiliations": [    "Southwest Petroleum University"  ],  "total_citations": 564,  "author_page_link": "https://www.semanticscholar.org/author/40573142",  "number_of_papers": 32}
Price
1 credit per completed run (1¢ with pay as you go); failed runs are free.
Method
semanticscholar.org/get_author
Returns
name, affiliations, homepage, paper count, total citations, h-index, author page, top papers, author ID

Use it from your agent

Give your agent this line. It reads SKILL.md, gets a Fous API key and connects the Fous MCP server. Its run then takes the method semanticscholar.org/get_author with the inputs above.

Ask your agent

  • What's Yoshua Bengio's h-index and total citation count?
  • Look up Jennifer Doudna on Semantic Scholar and list her most-cited papers along with her paper count.
  • I need impact metrics for Wei Zhang at Tsinghua University — h-index, citations, and top papers.
  • Pull the Semantic Scholar author profile for Geoffrey Hinton: affiliations, homepage, and author ID.
  • How many citations does Daphne Koller have, and which of her papers are cited the most?
  • Searches Semantic Scholar for research papers in relevance order, with field of study, year range and open-access filters, returning AI one-sentence summaries, citations and free PDF links when available.

    semanticscholar.org/search_papers
  • Finds a paper on Semantic Scholar by title, DOI or Semantic Scholar link and returns its abstract, one-sentence summary, authors, publication details, citation counts and a free PDF link when there is one.

    semanticscholar.org/get_paper
  • Summarise an institution's research output from its name, including annual output, leading topics and authors. Annual citations count citations received by works published that year; leading authors are coauthors of institution-linked works, not necessarily employees.

    openalex.org/get_institution_research
  • Looks up a researcher's public ORCID profile by name or ORCID iD, with employment, education, funding and up to 100 works. An institution helps tell namesakes apart; private entries are left out.

    orcid.org/get_researcher
  • Searches OpenAlex scholarly works by topic, with optional institution, publication-year and open-access filters, ranked by relevance, citations or newest date.

    openalex.org/search_papers
  • Finds an Open Library author by name, link or key and lists their works with first publication year, edition count, cover and an author profile.

    openlibrary.org/list_author_books
  • Finds arXiv preprints by topic or title words, with optional author, subject, submission date range and sorting. Returns up to 100 papers with abstracts, subjects, dates and links.

    arxiv.org/search_papers
  • Lists the latest public articles by a Medium writer or publication (by username, publication name or Medium link), with dates, reading times, claps, member-only labels and tags.

    medium.com/list_author_articles