Northeastern University’s Latinx, Latin American and Caribbean Studies program will kick off a new speaker series, “Latinxs and Comedy,” with actress, author and activist Selenis Leyva.

Leyva’s appearance at 6 p.m. Thursday at Blackman Auditorium on the Boston campus will help celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month, which runs through Oct. 15.

Leyva is best known for her role as Gloria Mendoza in the popular Netflix series “Orange Is the New Black.” She will talk about Afro Latina representation in comedy and in Hollywood.

The “Latinx and Comedy” speaker series will host four more talks:

October: Albert Sergio Laguna, associate professor of ethnicity, race and migration and American studies at Yale University, will talk about the use of humor by exiles in Cuban diaspora in the U.S.

November: Martinez will talk about more than 50 years of Latinx stand-up comedy in New York.

February: Frances Negrón-Muntaner, award-winning filmmaker, writer, curator, scholar and professor at Columbia University, will speak about her report on the state of Latinos in comedy.

The series will wrap up in March with a performance by stand-up comic Xasmin Garza