Barbara Jane Heal (née Kneale, born 21 October 1946)[1] is a British philosopher, and since 2012, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge.

She was educated at Oxford High School for Girls and New Hall, Cambridge,[2] where she read first History before changing to Philosophy (Moral Sciences) after two years.

After two years of post-doctoral study in the US, at Princeton and Berkeley, she was appointed to a Lectureship at Newcastle University.

In the same year she became the first female President of St John's College, Cambridge[4] serving between 1 October 1999 and 2003.

Her work in the philosophy of mind came to be known as 'simulation' or 'co-cognition'- that our understanding of other people is achieved by, so far as we are able, placing ourselves inwardly in their situation and then allowing our thoughts and emotions to run forwards in a kind of imaginative experiment.