Jona van Oord is Co-Founder and COO at Rise Reforming, a cleantech startup commercializing modular technology to convert unrecyclable plastic waste into carbon-negative chemicals like DME and methanol. He is an environmentalist-turned-engineer driven by a lifelong mission to build hardware solutions that address the climate crisis.

Jona studies Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago, where he gained deep expertise in polymers, plastics, and clean fuels as a research assistant in the Patel Lab at UChicago PME. His academic foundation and passion for sustainable systems directly shaped Rise Reforming's technical direction.

As COO, Jona leads fundraising efforts, grant and accelerator applications, and spearheaded Rise's strategic expansion into methanol production. He champions a decentralized model, placing modular production units on-site at plastic packaging facilities to eliminate costly long-distance chemical transport.

Rise Reforming is a Y Combinator S26 company that has raised over $1M, including a closed pre-seed round of $650K, and secured a DOE Voucher for commercialization support. The team won First Place at the DOE EnergyTech University Prize 2024, earning $50,000 in recognition of their breakthrough approach.

Rise Reforming took home the European Aerosols Federation 2025 Startup Award and presented as the youngest team at Paris Packaging Week 2025. The company is now based at Illinois Institute of Technology's incubator lab, advancing its proof-of-concept and preparing for its pilot plant.