John Arnfield Heap, CMG (5 February 1932 – 8 March 2006) was an English polar scientist who helped protect Antarctica from exploitation.
He was educated at the Quaker-founded Leighton Park School in Reading and the University of Edinburgh where he studied geography.
He began his career with pioneering research on Antarctic sea ice, for which he was awarded his doctorate at Clare College, Cambridge and the Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI).
After his retirement in 1997, he was chair of the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust and treasurer of the International Glaciological Society.
Heap married Margaret (Peggy) Spicer in 1960 and had two daughters, Sarah and Alice, and one son, Tom Heap, the BBC's Rural Affairs Correspondent and presenter of BBC One's Countryfile programme and a reporter for Panorama and BBC Radio 4's Costing the Earth programme.