Should I "name-drop" in my MIT application?

I'm applying to MIT, and on the first question about our favorite subject and why we want to study it at MIT, and I chose math.

For context, I've been independently studying abstract math for ~4.5 years now, and am now at the advanced undergraduate/early graduate level, and am particularly interested in a field called arithmetic geometry. MIT's math department has a lot of researchers on arithmetic geometry program, and especially one guy named Bjorn Poonen, with whose research I'm especially fascinated.

My question is, should I specifically mention him in my answer, or would this be viewed more negatively?