Edward Alan Knapp (March 7, 1932 – August 17, 2009) was an American physicist and was Director of the National Science Foundation from 1982 to 1984. Knapp graduated with BA from Pomona College in 1954, and with a PhD in physics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1958. He then moved to the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, where he became division leader of the accelerator technology division. Knapp died at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on August 17, 2009 after battling pancreatic cancer.