Nadja Maleh is the daughter of a Syrian physician and East Tyrolean psychotherapist Margaretha Maleh, President of Doctors Without Borders Austria. After attending a secondary academic school with modern languages in Vienna from 1982 to 1990, she studied drama with Michael Mohapp at the Graumann Acting Musical Entertainment Studio (GAMES) theatre school at the Graumann Theatre in Vienna until 1994.

In the same year she completed a training course at the "International Studio for Movement Theatre at the Odeon". She has been taking voice lessons since 1998. Maleh's first solo show – Flugangsthasen – premièred at "Kabarett Niedermair" in Vienna on March 8, 2007, while her second stage show was entitled Radio Aktiv (première: February 4, 2010, “Kabarett Niedermair”).