Helena Wladimirna Antipoff was a Russian-born Brazilian psychologist. Born in Grodno in what is now Belarus to an aristocratic family, they moved from the Russian Empire to Paris due to increasing social unrest. While there, Antipoff earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Sorbonne in 1911 and interned under Théodore Simon in Alfred Binet's laboratory. Antipoff spent the next four years at the Jean-Jacques Rousseau Institute to study under Édouard Claparède, graduating with a degree in educational psychology. While there, she became a proponent of the active school style of education, focusing on autonomous learning for students.