[5] Schake obtained her PhD in government from the University of Maryland, where she was a student of Thomas Schelling and Catherine Kelleher.

[8] During President George W. Bush's first term, she was the director for Defense Strategy and Requirements on the National Security Council.

Projects she contributed to include conceptualizing and budgeting for continued transformation of defense practices, the most significant realignment of U.S. military forces and bases around the world since 1950, creating NATO's Allied Command Transformation and the NATO Response Force, and recruiting and retaining coalition partners for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

[7] She has held the Distinguished Chair of International Security Studies at West Point, and also served in the faculties of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy, and the National Defense University.

[15] Since 2019, Schake has also been serving on the Transatlantic Task Force of the German Marshall Fund and the Bundeskanzler-Helmut-Schmidt-Stiftung (BKHS), co-chaired by Karen Donfried and Wolfgang Ischinger.

"[23] Schake was raised in a small town in Sonoma County, California, by her parents Cecelia and Wayne, a former Pan Am pilot.