The first IEEE International Conference on Signal and Image Processing Applications (ICSIPA09) was held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on November 18 -19, 2009. Kuala Lumpur is a vibrant city situated in the heart of peninsular Malaysia surrounded by scenic mountains with tropical weather suitable for vacation. ICSIPA09 was a unique conference that brought members of the IEEE Signal Processing Society together with researchers from allied fields such as remote sensing, communications and bioinformatics. The conference theme focused on the theory, methods and algorithms, and applications of signal processing and image processing.