Kyle Ng recalls the spark that ignited his love for languages.
His grandfather was a hardworking immigrant from Hong Kong who, with Ng’s grandmother, opened a flower shop in California’s Bay Area and helped raise Ng and his siblings.
“As he was one of the world’s slowest drivers, we had some of the best conversations together,” recalls NG, a computational linguistics major at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.
Sadly, his grandfather passed away last summer and won’t be able to see him graduate with a bachelor’s degree this May and, this December, a master’s degree in language sciences. But his grandfather will always remain a loving inspiration for Ng, who cherishes language as a medium for people to connect.
And Ng is all about forming connections.
Take, for example, his role as co-president of USC Kung Fu. For Ng, the student club is about much more than Chinese martial arts. It’s a way of approaching life.
“It’s not just a competitive sports club,” Ng says, “but building a community through the hard work of people.”
Computational linguistics student revels in interdisciplinary opportunities
Ng’s studies in computational linguistics, the scientific and engineering study of human language, have allowed him to further form connections with a community of USC students in the fields of linguistics, computer science, and artificial intelligence.
The interdisciplinary opportunities at USC Dornsife were one of the main reasons he came here in fall 2022, initially interested in physics and computer science and then in East Asian languages and cultures before settling on his major.
A key turning point was enrolling in a linguistics course, “Human Language as Computation” (LING 385Lg), taught by Professor of Linguistics Khalil Iskarous. The material convinced Ng to pursue a field that combines science and the humanities — and sates his seemingly limitless thirst for knowledge.
“He wouldn’t let an unclear point pass in class, and he wouldn’t let an office hour, an opportunity for inquiry, pass without a brilliant question,” Iskarous says. “Through the hard work of asking, asking, and more asking, Kyle has developed the skill of problem formulation — not just the usual skill of answering and solving.
“Every time I work with Kyle on a problem, I become more hopeful, as I know that the world is about to get a great problem formulator and solver.”
Laura Apisakkul, assistant dean of USC Dornsife admission and student success, saw that promise when Ng was a high school senior and she was interviewing him for a USC scholarship.
“When you talk with Kyle about something he’s interested in,” Apisakkul says, “his enthusiasm is contagious, and you can’t help but be drawn into whatever topic he’s discussing.
“I’ve never met anyone as energetic, optimistic, and curious as Kyle. He loves learning and asking questions to better understand the world around him.”
That enthusiasm and love of learning helped earn Ng a Trustee Scholarship, one of USC’s most prestigious merit awards, covering full tuition for undergraduate students who demonstrate exceptional academic achievement and leadership.
He also received a Gold Family Scholarship, which supports study-abroad opportunities for Trustee Scholars.
He’s been busy.
USC Dornsife senior guides peers as student ambassador
Since starting at USC Dornsife, Ng has served as a student ambassador for the admissions team. He says the volunteer work has satisfied his longtime passion to mentor others — as well as feed them. Ng is known for lugging a rice cooker around campus to share meals with the various circles of students he’s involved with.
“He cares about others around him and is truly interested in hearing their stories, which is why he’s been such a wonderful Dornsife student ambassador,” Apisakkul says.
In high school, Ng participated in FIRST, a global youth robotics community. As part of that, he founded Serendipity, a group dedicated to increasing STEM opportunities for special education students through coding lessons.
“I saw not a class, nor students, nor teachers, but a family,” he says.
After entering USC, Ng participated in the USC Rocket Propulsion Lab, an undergraduate rocketry group for experimental rocket technologies.
“I helped launch two rockets,” he says with a laugh.
Linguistics major dives into AI research
Ng had his first experience with AI research during the SURF (Summer Undergraduate Research Fund) program, which provides financial support for students conducting faculty-mentored research during the summer.
“I sat in an MRI for three hours for a vocal scan to analyze the movement in my mouth when I spoke,” Ng explains. “The study was part of an experiment to see if such mouth movements could be used in helping to understand how speech LLMs (large language models) work.”
Iskarous and PhD student Haley Hsu mentored Ng during his SURF project. “Not only is Kyle an impressively hardworking student, but he is also a major pillar of the linguistics community at USC,” says Hsu. “His desire to deeply understand and absorb as much information as possible is truly inspirational.”
During the winter break this year, Ng spent three weeks at the Oxford AI Safety Institute pursuing AI Safety, a field dedicated to ensuring AI systems behave as intended, minimizing harmful, dangerous, or uncontrollable outcomes.
Senior’s future a numbers game — and much, much more
Ng says he isn’t sure yet what his post-graduate plans are, but if his achievements to date are any indication, it will almost certainly involve a line of work that goes far beyond the numbers-crunching involved in studying how machines process language.
In an essay he wrote as part of his application to USC Dornsife, Ng reimagines a data-driven world in which people often are defined by numbers (one = the number of winners at the top, a 4.0 GPA, a perfect AP score of 5, etc.).
“I’m redefining the way I count,” Ng wrote, describing the life philosophy he continues to hone today:
“Five. How many more laughs can we share?
“4.0. How many more memories can we make?
“One. A community that is greater than the sum of its numbers.”
