Heather Fullerton, MD, MAS

Dr. Heather Fullerton is a pediatric vascular neurologist and clinical investigator at the University of California, San Francisco. After completing medical school at Baylor College of Medicine (Houston, TX), she moved to the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) for her pediatrics residency, child neurology and vascular neurology fellowships, and master’s in clinical research. She joined the UCSF faculty in 2003. She is the Kenneth Rainin Chair in Pediatric Stroke Care, Chief of Child Neurology in the UCSF Department of Neurology, and medical director of the Pediatric Brain Center at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital.

Dr. Fullerton's primary research efforts have focused on understanding the complex relationships between infection, inflammation, and arterial ischemic stroke in childhood. She has had continuous NIH funding for over two decades, leading international, multicenter prospective cohort studies in this area. She also has a research interest in hemorrhagic stroke, which accounts for half of all strokes seen in children. She is the Center and Training Director of the AHA-Bugher Center of Excellence in Hemorrhagic Stroke Research at UCSF.

Dr. Fullerton is the principal investigator of the first NIH StrokeNet childhood stroke treatment trial. The FOcal Cerebral Arteriopathy Steroid (FOCAS) Trial, which began in February 2023, is a comparative effectiveness trial of corticosteroids for the treatment of focal cerebral arteriopathy of childhood (FCA), an inflammatory, post-infectious cerebral arteriopathy that affects otherwise healthy children.

Dr. Fullerton is also the founding President of the International Pediatric Stroke Organization (IPSO), a nonprofit organization that aims to improve the prevention, care, and lifelong outcomes of children with cerebrovascular disease worldwide. Additionally, she serves as a co-mentorship officer and executive committee member of the NINDS Child Neurologist Career Development Program (CNCDP), a national K12 program that aims to train and support the next generation of academic child neurologists.

Presentation(s):

• Grand Plenary

  Wednesday, June 7, 2023
  8:00 AM – 12:00 PM MST

• CACN Tibbles Lecture | Dr Heather Fullerton - The Paradox of Infection and Childhood Stroke

  Wednesday, June 7, 2023
  10:30 AM – 11:00 AM MST

• Child Neurology (CACN) Day AM: Pediatric Stroke

  Thursday, June 8, 2023
  8:00 AM – 10:30 AM MST

• Arterial ischemic stroke – age differences in younger and older children

  Thursday, June 8, 2023
  8:45 AM – 9:20 AM MST