At age 10, he earned a perfect score of 800 on the math portion of what is now called the SAT-I, a feat considered to be a “remarkable achievement” when a high school junior or senior did it.
He entered college (Harvard University) full-time at the age of 16 and majored in Mathematics and Physics, graduating summa cum laude in three years.
He competed in the William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition while at Harvard University and was a three-time fellow (in 1993, 1994, and 1995), one of only 18 people to have achieved this feat since 1938.
The first time he became a Putnam Fellow was at the age of 16, making him one of only 6 people (the 5 others being Arthur Rubin, Noam Elkies, Don Zagier, David Ash and John Tillinghast) in the history of the competition to have achieved this feat.
Ng computed the linearized contact homology in this case, providing an entirely combinatorial model for it which is a powerful knot invariant.