Aleksander Essex is an associate professor of software engineering at Western University. His research specializes in cybersecurity and cryptography, with a focus on evidence-based election technology and the unique cyber risks associated with online voting. He initiated and helped draft the first national voluntary standard for online voting in Canada, published in 2024. He has advised numerous election agencies in Canada and abroad on the technical and democratic implications of election technology adoption.

He runs Whisper Lab, the Western Information Security and Privacy Research Laboratory, which researches applied cryptography, web security, secure multi-party computation, and privacy and anonymity.