The Pediatric Stroke Research Center is the research arm of the UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Stroke & Cerebrovascular Disease Center directed by Dr. Christine Fox. The UCSF Pediatric Stroke Research Center is a group of pediatric stroke neurologists and full-time support staff performing clinical research in cerebrovascular diseases, principally stroke. The Pediatric Stroke and Cerebrovascular Group's experienced research personnel include a full-time epidemiologist and biostatistician, project manager, clinical research coordinators and research analyst. The group also benefits from many dedicated research volunteers, many of whom go on to matriculate in medical and nursing schools. Dr. Heather J. Fullerton, Chief of Child Neurology serves as the director of the group and manages numerous research studies that utilize its infrastructure. The group has monthly clinical research meetings, with video-conferencing to join investigators at its three sites (Mission Bay, Parnassus, and San Francisco General Hospital). The group successfully coordinated an NIH funded multi-center clinical research study, Vascular effects of Infection in Pediatric Stroke study (VIPS; PIs Heather Fullerton and Gabrielle DeVeber).

The group is committed to the mission of improving the lives of children worldwide with cerebrovascular disease through research, education, clinical care and advocacy. The group engages in this mission by being actively involved members of the International Pediatric Stroke Organization (IPSO), a non-profit, where Dr. Fullerton serves as the inaugural president. Dr. Fullerton and the research support staff are also involved in the Brain Recovery Education Initiative (BREd) at UCSF. Dr. Bethany Johnson-Kerner is the director and the program's mission is to innovate tailored, dynamic cognitive rehabilitation programs within an educational framework for children recovering from acquired brain injury (ABI) in order to maximize their outcomes using a multidisciplinary approach. 

The group also collaborates with researchers from other UCSF departments including, Neurological Surgery, Neuroradiology, Interventional Neuroradiology, the Center for Cerebrovascular Research, and the Center for Next-Gen Precision Diagnostics. They  also have a long-standing collaboration with Kaiser Permanente Northern California, Department of Research—the Kaiser-UCSF Stroke Program (KUSP)—performing numerous epidemiological studies of adult and pediatric stroke.