Kyna G. Fong ’03 is not your typical teen.
The Phi Beta Kappa, Hoopes Prize-winning 19-year-old graduates today with a bachelor’s in applied math and economics as well as a master’s degree in computer science.
Fong was also the 2001 National Collegiate Table Tennis Champion.
The talkative Fong speaks modestly of her accomplishments.
When mentioning Phi Beta Kappa, she is quick to offer the fact that she was elected senior fall and not as one of the “Junior 24.”
And as for the Hoopes Prize, one of Harvard’s highest academic awards, awarded annually to undergraduates for “outstanding” scholarly research? Fong says her thesis, titled “Multi-Stage Information Acquisition in Option Design,” probably only won because her topic was a new area.
“It was a nice surprise,” Fong says.
Growing Up
Fong started grade school a year early and skipped eighth grade as a twelve year-old when her family moved from Alberta, Canada to Peoria, Ill., and she placed a grade ahead.
The age difference was “really annoying” in Illinois because she started high school at age twelve.
“Once people knew me, they didn’t care too much,” Fong says.
Coming from a family of table-tennis players, Fong was pleased when her family relocated once more to the San Francisco Bay area, where table tennis clubs were better.
The education in the Bay Area was also more up to speed for Fong—her senior year she had the opportunity to take a year’s worth of classes at the University of California at Berkeley, preparing her for the rigors of a Harvard career.
Fong was only 16 years old when she arrived at Weld Hall for her first year at Harvard with sophomore standing.
She says she neither hid nor promoted the age differene to her roommates.
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