NO BUG: Queries for the post author

Bugs
1

Browser: Brave
OS: macOS

I have been trying to set up a query to find a custom field of another post type where the value is equal to the author of this post type. For context, I have a ‘profile’ post type where a profile post is auto created when a user is created. That user creates posts using a ‘research’ post type. And on the ‘profile’ post type I wish to find the posts that the author contributed to. They are selected as the user in a custom field.

However, I have tried it this way:
Screenshot 2024-01-21 at 08.08.59
(and tried using the mb_research_academicinterviewer_ID that Bricks generates)

I have also tried it in the query editor:

$contributor = get_the_author_meta('ID');  // And tried every variation, putting in {}, '{}', and using {author_meta:ID}. As a sidenote it is unclear to me how to use the Bricks way of mixing php and bricks - would prefer if regular php.
return [
    'post_type' => 'research',
    'post_status' => 'publish',
    'meta_query' => [
      [
            'key' => 'academicinterviewer_ID', //and tried with mb_research_academicinterviewer_ID
            'value' => $contributor, 
            'compare' => '=' 
       ],
   ],
  'posts_per_page' => -1,
];

But both just give me a list of all the posts, without the query being added. I have checked of course that there is a value in academicinterviewer_ID. But cannot get this working - I either get all or nothing.

Could the issue be that I am trying to double query. So I am working on one custom post type with one author, and then trying to pull in other posts from different authors where a field equals the author of the original profile post type

2

Ok if I do:

$post_id = get_the_ID();
$current_author = get_post_field('post_author', $post_id);
return [
  'post_type' => 'research',
  'author' => $current_author,
  'post_status' => 'publish',
  'posts_per_page' => -1,
];

Then it works! I thought did not need to get the post_ID as the bricks example was so simple with the {author_meta:ID}