In 2020, Nafisa was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize among over 5,000 applicants. During her time at Columbia University, she served as the Co-President of Our Word, a student organization supporting marginalized writers. At Columbia, she received the Felipe P. De Alba fellowship awarded by the Chair of the Writing Program. She is represented by Naomi Eisenbeiss of InkWell Management.

In the Fall ‘22 semester, Nafisa designed and taught a course as part of Columbia University’s Community Courses called Prose Playground, a generative class meant to spark new material through experimentation and play, in a manner meant to defy Western narrative conventions.

In November 2022, she was chosen as a panelist at the RARE Health Equity Summit as a result of her advocacy for equity in healthcare, where she engaged with healthcare practitioners and stakeholders in the healthcare system about the issue of medical gaslighting.

Her poem, I Tried To Be A Muslim, has been nominated for Best Young Poets 2024. Her poem, Sixteen Salvation, won the Lascaux Prize in Poetry 2024 and awarded $1,000. Her short story, The Vegetarian, was a finalist for the Waasnode Prize 2024 awarded by Passages North.