Ellen Hellmann (25 August 1908 – 6 November 1982) was a South African social anthropologist and the first woman to graduate with a D.Phil.
She attended the University of Witwatersrand where, in 1935, she completed her MA thesis with pioneering research into the conditions of the slums of Rooiyard in Doornfontein, Johannesburg.
She published this work in Rooiyard: A Sociological Survey Of An Urban Native Slum Yard in 1948.
She provided evidence to the 1955 Tomlinson Report and the Cillie Committee in 1976 and 1977 which was the Inquiry into the Riots at Soweto and Elsewhere.
From 1959 to 1971 Hellman was an Executive member of the Progressive Party in South Africa, which she had helped to found.