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Dr. Wilfred Y. Fujimoto is professor emeritus of internal medicine (endocrinology and metabolism) at the University of Washington in Seattle.

He was born in Hilo, Hawaii, where he lived until he went to Baltimore, Maryland, in 1958 to attend Johns Hopkins University, receiving the BA degree with honors in 1962 and MD degree in 1965. He then received training in internal medicine at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City from 1965-1967, followed by two years at the National Institutes of Health, another year of internal medicine training at the University of Washington, and an endocrinology fellowship at the University of Washington. He was appointed to the faculty of the University of Washington in 1970. He was also a visiting researcher at the University of Tokyo from 1979-1980.

Dr. Fujimoto retired in 2001, and moved back to Hawaii, where he lives with his wife in Kailua-Kona. In addition to gardening their one-acre lot and "do it yourself" activities around their home, he remains active, although officially retired, as co-investigator in the Diabetes Prevention Program Outcomes Study and the Japanese American Community Diabetes Study at the University of Washington, visiting professor at Jichi Medical University-Saitama Medical Center in Japan, and co-investigator in SEARCH for Diabetes in Youth and Genetic Determinants of Human Hypertension at the Pacific Health Research Institute in Honolulu, and also serves on several advisory committees in both Hawaii and Seattle as well as nationally.

He has been a member of the professional section of the American Diabetes Association since 1972 and has served on both local and national committees of the Association since 1987. At present, he is a member of the board development committee; the medicine, science and health care awards committee; and the Asian American and Pacific Islander Diabetes Action Council of the ADA.

He has authored or co-authored over 500 research papers, reviews, book chapters, and abstracts and received the 1999 Kelly West Award for Outstanding Achievement in Epidemiology from the American Diabetes Association. He was the recipient of the 2000 Robert H. Williams-Rachmiel Levine Award from the Western Metabolism Club for his mentoring of junior faculty and fellows. In 2001 he was presented the Lifetime Achievement Recognition Award by the American Diabetes Association-Washington Area and in 2005 a Community Visionary Award by International Community Health Services in Seattle. In recognition of research on the relationship of central adiposity in Japanese Americans to obesity-related diseases, in 2009 he received the Per Bjorntorp/Jean Vague Lecture Award from the International Chair on Cardiometabolic Risk.