This should work a little better

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
my $author = 'grep';
my @admin_users = qw/test that grep out/;


if ( grep { /^$author$/i } @admin_users ) {
    print "blah\n";
} else {
    print "uber_blah\n";
}
[download]

grep

grep> cd pub grep> more beer