To show member avatar in buddypress notification-loop (You can find it in members / single / notifications / notifications-loop.php ) Below snippet will return user id of that activity ( BuddyPress stored it as secondary_item) : $bp = buddypress(); $user_id = $bp->notifications->query_loop->notification->secondary_item_id; To echo avatar from user id : echo bp_activity_avatar( array( ‘user_id’ => $user_id ) );