Auberde Merilan , a USF McNairs Scholar, is a senior majoring in Electrical Engineering. He is the President of the Engineering College Council, a Senator of the USF Student Government, and he is also a member of the Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc.

Auberde is also the recipient of the Jerry Anderson Fund and was awarded The Young Floridian's Award. Auberde is currently researching with the Dr. Katkoori for the Computer Engineering Department.

His research topic is "Voice Processing Technology: Hardware Implementation of Voice Recognition in FPGA".

This summer, Auberde had the privilege to present his research proposal at the McNair's National Conference in Buffalo, NY. Auberde's research focused on voice recognition and he hopes to further extend this research.

Through Inroads, Auberde has had the opportunity to co-op with Verizon Data Services as a Network Engineer for the past year and a half. Upon graduation, Auberde plans to attend Georgia Tech where he wants to obtain his masters in Microelectronics.

                              " Whether or not you succeed in life depends solely
                                          on how well you prepare for your future! "