Jane Eleanor "Nellie" Datcher (1868 – February 24, 1934) was an American botanist and the first African-American woman to earn an advanced degree from Cornell University in 1890.

[1] She worked as a teacher at Dunbar High School in Washington, D.C. and was a founding member of the Collegiate Alumnae Club.

Her cousin, Charles C. Cook, eventually joined the staff at Howard University as a professor and head of the English Department.

This group met for the first time in Washington D.C. in the summer of 1892 to confer about improving the conditions of black children, women and the urban poor.

Other notable women in attendance include Anna Julia Cooper, Helen Appo Cook, Ida Bell Wells-Barnett, Charlotte Forten Grimké, Mary Jane Patterson, Evelyn Shaw.