Berta Nunes was born in Santa Maria de Lamas, in the Portuguese district of Aveiro.
She holds a degree in Medicine and Surgery from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto, where she graduated in 1980 with the highest national grade in Medicine that year, which earned her one of the top awards of the country. She holds a PhD in Community Medicine (1996) from Abel Salazar Institute of Biomedical Sciences, with a thesis on the ideas and practices of lay people in relation to body and health which has been published in a book entitled "The medical knowledge of the people" by the "Fim do Século" publishing house.
She worked as a GP/family doctor at the Health Center of Alfândega da Fé, in Northeastern Portugal, between 1985 and 2005. She was Director of that Health Center between 1996 and 2002, and Coordinator of the Bragança Health Subregion from 2005 to 2009. She was also Executive Director of the Northeastern Health Center Group in 2009.
She was a collaborator of the Faculty of Medicine of Porto, Department of General Practice, under the Rural Contact program until 2005, and worked as an Assistant Professor of Medical Anthropology at the University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro (UTAD) in Miranda do Douro between 2003 and 2005.
Her medical career also included membership of "Wonca Rural", a group of rural doctors worldwide that study and investigate the specificities of health problems in rural areas, as well as of the Board of EURIPA, an European association of rural doctors, until 2005.
Berta Nunes was Speaker of the Alfândega da Fé Municipal Assembly between 1989 and 2001, a total of three mandates. In November 2009 Berta Nunes was elected Mayor of Alfândega da Fé and was subsequently reelected for two further mandates. However, on October 7, 2019 she suspended her duties to run for the Portuguese Parliament elections of October 2019.
She has earned several awards, including the Order of Merit bestowed by the President of the Portuguese Republic Jorge Sampaio, on March 8, 2003, and the Medal of Merit from the Order of Medical Doctors on November 12, 2014.