Bildhauer received the award in the category Modern European Languages and Literature for her scholarly work so far. The 36-year-old is a lecturer in literature and film studies at the University of St Andrews (Scotland). One of her main research priorities is medieval German literature in its cultural context and the present perception of it, for example, in motion pictures. Bildhauer is mainly interested in how blood and monsters are represented in medieval literature. She completed her Ph.D. thesis on "Blood in Thirteenth-Century German Literature" at the University of Cambridge.

At Freie Universität she is continuing her research on films about medieval Germany in order to conclude her book entitled A Medieval History of Film.