Ahmed studied in Calcutta and Comilla.
She was awarded Ekushey Padak by the Government of Bangladesh in 1997. Artist Zainul Abedin described her work saying "What Novera is doing now will take us a long time to understand – she is that kind of an artist.". Novera Ahmed"s ancestral home was in Chittagong.
In 1955 she was awarded a Diploma in Design in the Modeling and Sculpture course from Camberwell College of Arts in London.
At Camberwell she studied under the British sculptor Jacob Epstein and Karel Vogel of Czechoslovakia. She studied European sculpture under the sculptor Venturino Venturi in Florence and later in Vienna.
She was influenced by many western modern sculptors such as Henry Moore. Ahmed jointly worked with Hamidur Rahman on the original design of the Shaheed Minar, Dhaka.
During 1956-1960, she had done about 100 sculptures in Dhaka.
Out of her 100 sculptures, 33 sculptures are currently in Bangladesh National Museum. Ahmed"s first exhibition was held in University of Dhaka in 1960. Her last exhibition was also held in Paris in July 1973.
Ahmed suffered a stroke in 2010 and she was in a wheelchair since then
She died on May 6, 2015 at a hospital in Paris, France at the age of 85.