Meet Our Leadership Team
"A ceramics scientist, a bone biologist and a surgeon walk into a bar..." It sounds like the introduction of a corny joke. Our founders didn't meet in a bar, rather on a joint research project, but this unlikely trio recognized the synergy they had while working as a team. The end result? SpheroFill! Our team is the most important asset of our company, as they continue to innovate and propel SpheroFill forward.
Paul Weinberger
George Wicks
William
Hill
Paul Weinberger
President & CEO
Dr. Weinberger, one of three SpheroFill co-founders, is a nationally recognized airway reconstruction surgeon, scientist, and healthcare leader. He has served as interim-CEO since the company’s inception and is named inventor on multiple key SpheroFill patents. In addition to his leadership role at SpheroFill, he has an active surgical practice and is the Medical Director of Specialty Physicians at Deaconess Clinic in Evansville, Indiana. His undergraduate training was at Georgia State and Emory University followed by medical school at the Medical College of Georgia and subsequent residency and fellowship training programs at Georgia Health Sciences University, Yale University, and the Royal National Throat Nose and Ear Hospital and University College of London. He has authored over 60 articles and chapters in the medical literature, and has 3 US Patents awarded and several in various stages of prosecution. He has been the recipient of numerous national awards including the 2006 Fanconi Award from the American Head and Neck Society, and the AMA Foundation National Leadership Award in 2007 from the American Medical Association.
George Wicks Ph.D.
VP Research & CTO
Dr. Wicks is one of the co-founders of SpheroFill and led the team at the US Department of Energy that developed the Porous Wall Hollow Glass Microspheres that serve as the basis for a significant portion of SpheroFill’s IP portfolio. He received his undergraduate engineering degree from Florida State University, followed by masters and doctoral degrees at Harvard (M.S. Applied Physics and Engineering) and MIT (Ph.D. Metallurgy and Materials Science) respectively. He is one of the most respected and well-known ceramic scientists in the world and has served as the president of the American Ceramics Society as well as the National Institute of Ceramic Engineers. He has been the recipient of numerous awards including the international Greaves-Walker award, Joan Hodges Queneau Palladium Metal, CNTA’s Distinguished Scientist of the Year, the South Carolina Academy of Science’s Governor’s Award for Excellence in Scientific Research, James Muller Distinguished Lecturer and Award, and most recently in 2021, the John Jeppson Medal “recognizing distinguished scientific, technical, and engineering achievements in ceramic science”. He is a Fellow of ACerS, NICE, and ASM International and also a Distinguished Life Member of the American Ceramic Society (its highest honor) as well as a Distinguished Life Member of the Alpha Sigma Mu International Honorary Society, awarded to “those select few whose technical attainment and contributions in the field of materials science and engineering have resulted in significant benefits to mankind.” He has also been elected to the World Academy of Ceramics. Dr. Wicks has authored over 200 scientific manuscripts and is a named inventor on almost two dozen awarded patents, including key SpheroFill IP. He served 40 years at the Savannah River National Laboratory before retiring in 2013 at the highest technical position in the organization and currently serves as CTO of the Applied Research Center as well as Chief Technical Officer in SpheroFill, where he is responsible for overseeing development and quality control of SpheroFill products, including its unique microspheres.
William Hill, Ph.D.
Executive VP & CSO
Dr. William (Dave) Hill is the Chief Scientific Officer and one of the co-founders of SpheroFill. He is a biomedical researcher and currently a Professor in the department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina, as well as a Health Research Scientist at the Ralph H. Johnson Veterans Administration Medical Center in Charleston SC. He is also a Professor in the Center for Healthy Aging in the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University. He received his BA from Wake Forest University, his MS in Otolaryngology and Ph.D. in Anatomy and Neurobiology from the Bowman Gray School of Medicine at Wake Forest University. He was an NIH/NRSA Fellow in the section of Neuropathology in the department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. His research laboratories are strongly focused on clinical translation related to aging research and technology transfer. He is recognized for his research in aging focused on stem cells in musculoskeletal and neurological systems and their effects in acute and chronic diseases such as osteoporosis, stroke, as well as Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia, and Regenerative Medicine. His research is funded through multiple grants by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation. Dr. Hill’s research is highly cited, he serves on NIH and VA grant review panels, is actively sought as a research journal reviewer, and is an inventor on multiple patents.