Richard G. Braungart is an American sociologist and political scientist, who is professor emeritus in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.

[5] In the area of youth movements and generational politics, Braungart was a Senior Staff Consultant, Associate, and Research Director for the President's Commission on Campus Unrest (Scranton Commission, 1970), and he consulted and participated in International Planning Meetings with the United Nations Youth Unit in New York City.

Many of his professional efforts have been devoted to the study of life course and generational politics from comparative, historical, national, and international perspectives.

His research on student activism began at Penn State with a term paper he wrote for a political sociology class during the 1960s campus protests.

[7] The research findings from his 1969 doctoral dissertation—"Family Status, Socialization, and Student Politics: A Multivariate Analysis"—were published in numerous sociology journals.

He then joined the faculty at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, where he held joint appointments in the Departments of Sociology, Political Science, and International Relations (1972–2002).

Throughout his professional career, Braungart formed alliances, consulted, lectured, and contributed to youth research centers in the United States,[11] Canada, Mexico, Germany, Russia, Bulgaria, Poland, India, China, South Africa, South Korea, Norway, and the United Nations.