Helen Almira Shafer (23 September 1839—20 January 1894) was an American educator and president of Wellesley College.

[2][1] Professor W. T. Harris, then superintendent of the schools of St. Louis, ranked her as the most able and successful teacher of mathematics in the country.

Her work in Wellesley College as professor of mathematics was marked by even greater results than she achieved in St. Louis.

She is said to have visibly advanced the standing of Wellesley and was described as one of the most prominent and successful educators and college administrators of the nineteenth century.

[1] In 1893 Shafer was awarded by Oberlin College a Doctorate of Law, making her only the second American woman to receive such an honour.