Averil Coxhead is widely known for developing the Academic Word List, a list of 570 word families associated with great frequency in academic texts. This list has been particularly useful to teachers of English as a Second Language as well as independent learners in tertiary education. She has also developed a Science-based word list (Coxhead and Hirsh, 2007; Coxhead and Quero, 2015), researched vocabulary use in writing (see Coxhead, 2012), and carried out work on vocabulary for English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and English for Specific Purposes (ESP) in secondary school, polytechnic, and university settings (including TED Talks; Coxhead and Walls, 2012). Besides the Academic Word List, Averil's publications include "Academic Vocabulary for Middle School Students: Research-Based Lists and Strategies for Key Content Areas" (with Jennifer Wells Greene, 2015), "New Ways in Teaching Vocabulary (Revised)" (2014), and "Essentials of Teaching Academic Vocabulary" (1996). Averil is a Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics at the School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies in Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, and is currently serving as the MA Programme Director. She teaches courses in the undergraduate TESOL and MA (Applied Linguistics/TESOL) programmes, and supervises MA and PhD research. Her research interests lie in areas of specialized vocabulary and vocabulary use. She has taught in New Zealand, England, Estonia, Hungary and Romania. In this interview, Coxhead discusses what led her to focus on vocabulary and extensive reading, how she came up with the ides of an Academic Word List (AWL), Extensive Reading Foundation (ERF) and her role in it, and directions she wishes to pursue in the future.