Name writer by surname when citing
You can mention the name, and then reference the thesis.

I would write something like...


  Anderson [1] describes blah blah


Or something like that. But you don't have to mention the name so much as the concept or evidence, for example...


  Incentive salience explains a system of hedonic processing which draws  attention to rewarding stimuli based upon...etc [1]


*Incentive salience is theory developed by Robinson and Berridge, and is crucial to understanding hedonic processing. But I don't personally always refer to authors surnames in text. Appropriate citation to the references is more important. The writing style is up to you, but if you which to refer to a specific section you can add the page to the main text i.e.


  Chapter 4 of Morpheus's thesis found the Matrix to be all around us [1,
  p.15].


I wouldn't personally write like this, but it is acceptable for an undergraduate project, and as a comment on my answer mentioned, some people prefer reading the reference name. 

Please see the linked pdf for some rules regarding referencing in the IEEE style. I also found this answer on the writers stack regarding IEEE referencing of thesis material, which could be of some use. 

Robinson, T. E., &amp; Berridge, K. C. (2008). The incentive sensitization theory of addiction: some current issues. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 363(1507), 3137–3146. http://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2008.0093