Oh you’re right! Sorry, I was using a different snippet. Your suggestion works @rdwatters using this code.
{{ range first 15 .Site.Taxonomies.authors.ByCount }}
<li><a href="/authors/{{ .Name | urlize }}">{{ lower .Name }} <span>{{ .Count }}</span></a> </li>
{{ end }}
How would I extract params.photoThumb, since I need to display the photo and not the name?