Election profile: Naomi Long, Alliance leader

March's Assembly election will mark Naomi Long's first as leader of the Alliance Party

She is the woman who knocked the former DUP leader and first minister, Peter Robinson out of the Westminster seat he had held for more than 30 years.

March's Assembly election will mark Naomi Long's first as leader of the Alliance Party, a role she took up in October 2016.

Born in 1971, in the heart of what was to become her own constituency, she did not aspire to become a politician.

She earned a Masters degree in engineering at Queen's University, Belfast.

'Real hope'

"What I saw in the 70s and 80s was the failure of politics," she told the Belfast News Letter.

"I suppose all I saw were men in grey suits shouting at each other on the television. It just didn't seem to hold any real hope.

"When I went to Queen's (university) I started mixing with people in an integrated environment and I realised very quickly how much people have in common."

She was elected to Belfast City Council in June 2001.

Mrs Long with Hilary Clinton at re-opening of Belfast City Hall in 2009

In 2009, she became Belfast's second female lord mayor, and in 2010, she became the MP for East Belfast.

Mrs Long received death threats during loyalist protests

Mrs Long is married to her childhood sweetheart, Michael Long

The Alliance party was targeted by loyalists in 2014, angered by their support for a decision to display the union flag at Belfast City Hall on designated days, rather than every day of the year.

Mrs Long received death threats and later revealed she had been secretly battling skin cancer at the time of the unrest.

After losing her Westminster seat in May 2015, she told the BBC she had considered leaving politics, but decided to fight last year's Assembly election.

Mrs Long was the only candidate for the leadership of the Alliance party after David Ford's resignation from the job

In October 2016 Mrs Long took over from long-standing Alliance leader David Ford.

Accepting the role, Ms Long said: "Leadership is not just a position, it is an attitude."

The Alliance party campaign launch for the 2017 Assembly elections

"I want to re-energise our membership, but also re-energise a public who are jaded with politics and what passes for politics at Stormont," she told the BBC.

"People who are interested in the political situation, but are not interested in much of what we see happening."